September 12, 1913: Shoeless Joe Jackson injured at Griffith Stadium in the heat of AL batting race with Ty Cobb

On September 12, 1913,1 the Cleveland Naps took on the Washington Nationals in front of 5,000 fans in Griffith Stadium. With three weeks to go in the season, neither second-place Cleveland nor third-place Washington had much of a chance to catch the American League-leading Philadelphia Athletics. The Naps were 7½ games behind the Athletics, and the Nationals were 9½ games out. The Nationals had won the first four games of the series, outscoring the Naps, 25-7, and were looking to move a game closer to second place.2

The pitching matchup was a replay of the second game of the series-opening doubleheader on September 9, which Washington won, 8-2. Walter Johnson had gone eight innings without allowing an earned run to improve his record to 31-7.3 The Nationals had knocked out Cleveland’s Fred Blanding (15-7) in the third inning, with the key hit being catcher Eddie Ainsmith’s three-run inside-the-park home run.4

The Naps were without manager Joe Birmingham this Friday afternoon, as he was ejected by umpire Jack Egan in the prior contest, a 7-3 Nationals victory. Birmingham’s foul language earned him an indefinite suspension from AL president Ban Johnson.5

Cleveland star Shoeless Joe Jackson was in contention for the batting race, as he was in 1911 and 1912, in which he lost both to Detroit Tigers center fielder Ty Cobb.6 In 1913 the 26-year-old Jackson was once again battling Cobb.7 On the morning of September 12, Cobb’s average stood at .378 while Jackson’s was at .376.

Jackson, hailing from Pickens County, South Carolina, had always been a polarizing figure in the media. Due to his lack of schooling, Jackson was often looked at as a rube, unlike his fellow southerner Cobb. Jackson’s education was an often talked-about subject in the press, and many baseball executives and writers were rooting against him because of it.8

While many writers wanted Cobb to win the crown, Cobb himself believed that some pitchers were giving Jackson free hits as a personal vendetta against him. Cobb even questioned whether Walter Johnson was one of these pitchers, asking, “Does Johnson pitch as hard against Jackson as he does against me?” Johnson insisted he pitched equally hard to both.9 For his career, Cobb hit .391 in 258 at-bats against Johnson; Jackson hit .300 in 130 at-bats.

Johnson got off to a hot start in the top of the first, retiring the Naps in order while striking out center fielder Nemo Leibold and Jackson. In the bottom half, center fielder Clyde Milan ripped a single off Blanding, the first of four hits in a day where he was the Nationals’ biggest batting star.10

Washington delivered the first run in the second, when Ainsmith banged a triple off the left-field fence, scoring second baseman Ray Morgan from first.

The Naps evened the score in the fourth. After Leibold walked to begin the inning, breaking up Johnson’s rhythm after retiring the first nine, shortstop Ray Chapman, playing his first full major-league season at age 22, reached on a fielder’s choice. Jackson attempted to sacrifice, but Johnson fielded the bunt and threw out Leibold at third. Third baseman Eddie Foster then gave 39-year-old Nap Lajoie another chance by dropping a popup in foul territory, and the team’s namesake drove in Cleveland’s first and only run of the game on a single to center.11

Leading off in the bottom half of the fourth, Milan hit a drive into right-center, which sent Jackson crashing into the Griffith Stadium wall. Milan rounded second, but Leibold picked up the ball and threw him out at third. Jackson was knocked unconscious on the play as a hush fell over the crowd.12 After about five minutes, Jackson regained consciousness but had to leave the game with a badly bruised knee. He was replaced in right field by Buddy Ryan.13

Foster followed with a single. Blanding retired Chick Gandil on a fly ball for the second out and seemed to be on his way out of the inning when Morgan grounded to Chapman. But Chapman bobbled the ball for an error, and the Nationals capitalized. Ainsmith smacked a double to right to score Foster. Ainsmith had just 10 extra-base hits in 1913, and two came in this game. Howie Shanks’ single scored Morgan and Ainsmith before he was caught in a rundown between first and second, where the Naps tagged him out.14 It was a 4-1 game.

After Jackson’s injury, the Cleveland bats would muster only four hits. The Naps had only three more hits with a Steve O’Neill single in the fifth, an O’Neill triple in the eighth, and a Ryan single in the ninth. Johnson got out unscathed each time.

Milan scored runs in the sixth and eighth innings to give Johnson an even bigger cushion. He led off the sixth with a single before Foster bunted him to second base. Gandil hit a fly to right to send Milan to third before he came around to score on Blanding’s wild pitch. He doubled in the eighth and scored on Gandil’s double.

The Nationals went on to win, 6-1. Johnson, who threw only 21 balls all game, picked up his 32nd victory.15

In Boston, Cobb had gone 2-for-4 in the Tigers’ 18-5 loss to the Boston Red Sox. He was batting .380, and Jackson was at .374.16

Despite the injury, Jackson returned to the lineup a day later against the Athletics and went 0-2 with a walk. Jackson finished the season batting .373, once again losing out in the batting race to Cobb, who hit .389 and won his seventh of 12 career batting titles. 17  

Jackson never won a batting title, despite ranking fourth all-time in career batting average, trailing only Cobb (.366), Oscar Charleston (.362), and Rogers Hornsby (.358). In August 1915,  Charles Somers, owner of the Cleveland ballclub, traded Jackson, a fan favorite, to the Chicago White Sox for pitcher Ed Klepfer, outfielders Braggo Roth and Larry Chappell, and $31,500. Jackson won a World Series championship with the White Sox in 1917 and remained one of the best players in the circuit until his departure from baseball in 1920.

Jackson was banned from professional baseball in September 1920, along with seven other members of the White Sox, for his involvement in throwing the 1919 World Series.18 Jackson died in 1951. In 2025 Commissioner Rob Manfred removed Jackson from the permanently ineligible list, clearing a path for his possible future election to the Hall of Fame.19

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Laura Peebles and copy-edited by Keith Thursby.

Photo credit: Shoeless Joe Jackson with the Cleveland Naps in 1913, SABR-Rucker Archive.

Sources

In addition to the sources in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information, including the box score and play-by-play.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/WS1/WS1191309120.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1913/B09120WS11913.htm

Notes

1 On this same day, track athlete Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals in the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics, was born in Oakville, Alabama.

2 J. Ed Grillo, “Nationals Sure to Be in Second Place If They Put Up Same Kind of Game Which Tumbled Cleveland,” Washington Evening Star, September 13, 1913: 9.

3 Johnson led the majors in wins, strikeouts, and ERA (1.20).

4 J. Ed Grillo, “Dual Victory Gives Team Chance to Finish Higher,” Washington Evening Star, September 10. 1913: 11.

5 “Senators Keep Going and Spank Naps Again,” New-York Tribune, September 13, 1913: 10. Birmingham returned to his managing duties on September 15 vs. the Athletics at Shibe Park.

6 Jackson hit .408 in 1911, an American and National League rookie record as of 2026, and followed that up in 1912 by batting .395. Cobb batted .419 and .409, respectively.

7 Tim Hornbaker, Fall from Grace: The Truth and Tragedy of “Shoeless Joe” Jackson, (Sports Publishing, 2016), 51

8 Hornbaker, 51.

9 Hornbaker, 51.

10 “Senators Keep Going.”

11 The Cleveland ballclub was referred to as the Naps for only one more season. They became the Indians after Lajoie was sold to the Athletics for the 1915 season. Lajoie had his last great season in 1913, finishing sixth in the AL with a .335 batting average at the age of 38.  

12 Hornbaker, 52.

13 “Jackson Runs into Fence and Is Rendered Unconscious,” Boston Globe, September 13, 1913: 6.

14 “Superior Batting Wins for Climbers”, Times Herald, September 13, 1913:10. Ainsmith had a slugging percentage of .293 in 1913.

15 “Only Twenty-One Called Balls in the Nine Innings,” Hamilton Spectator, September 13, 1913: 20. Johnson’s 36 wins in 1913 ranked fourth in the AL/NL since 1901 (As of 2026).

16 Jerry, “Ty and Joe Tied, Just Above Tris,” Dayton Daily News, September 13, 1913: 12.

17 It is disputed whether Cobb won 11 or 12 batting titles. In 1910, a controversy where St. Louis Browns manager Jack O’Connor told his third baseman Red Corriden to play on the grass allowed Cleveland’s Nap Lajoie to record eight hits in the final two games of the season, beating Cobb .383 to .382. However, for many years the records showed Cobb had a .384 average. Once American League president Ban Johnson caught wind of the scheme, Johnson declared Cobb the champion, counting two extra hits for him. Years later, his career hit total would be changed from 4,191 to 4,189, once the discrepancy was found. Baseball-Reference has both Cobb and Lajoie winning the title that year.  

18 In 2025 Commissioner Rob Manfred reactivated Jackson from the ineligible list. “Pete Rose, ‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson Among Players Reinstated by MLB,” ESPN.com, May 13, 2025, https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/45115659/pete-rose-shoeless-joe-jackson-players-reinstated-mlb. The eight Black Sox members suspected of throwing the 1919 World Series were acquitted in a Cook County court in 1921. Despite the acquittal, Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis banned all eight members for life.

19 “Pete Rose, ‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson among players reinstated by MLB.” Jackson will need votes from at least 12 of 16 total voters on the Classic Baseball Era Committee to get elected into the Hall of Fame.