Say It Ain’t So!
"I copied Jackson's style because
I thought he was the greatest hitter I had ever seen,
the greatest natural hitter I ever saw.
He's the guy who made me a hitter."
Babe Ruth
Joseph Jefferson Jackson (1887-1951) holds the fourth highest career batting average in Major League Baseball history. His 1911 rookie year .408 is a single-season record that still stands and, in 1990, The Sporting News ranked him 35th among the 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time. And he can claim the Cleveland and Chicago White Sox franchise records for triples-in-a-season and career batting average.
But a cheating scandal in which he did not participate left this illiterate, uneducated all-time great forever scarred by a single headline.
As a child – starting at age six or seven, he worked as a “linthead” – a mill hand – in the outskirts of Greenville, South Carolina and, at age 13 became the youngest member of the mill’s baseball team, earning all of $2.50 ($81 in 2021) per game.
One day, before his turn at bat, Jackson took off a new pair of cleats that was causing him blisters and, as he was running to third base, a heckler shouted, “You shoeless son of a gun, you!” – baptizing him with a nickname that lives in baseball history.
Shoeless Joe Jackson and seven other Chicago White Sox were charged with accepting $5,000 bribes (equivalent to $78,000 in 2021) to throw the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds – charges for which they were acquitted by a Chicago jury in 1921.
Following the verdict, Charley Owens of the Chicago Daily News wrote a tribute headlined “Say it ain’t so, Joe” and the phrase became legionary when another reporter erroneously attributed it to a child outside the courthouse.
Years later, the other seven players – genuinely involved in the scandal -confirmed that Jackson never participated in the plot and a 1993 article in The American Statistician reported the results of a statistical analysis of Jackson’s performance in the 1919 World Series indicating that there was “substantial support to Jackson’s subsequent claims of innocence.”
Nonetheless, “Say it ain’t so” remain among the most powerful words in the world of sport.
“We recognize a tree by its fruit,
and we ought to be able to recognize a Christian by his action.
The fruit of faith should be evident in our lives,
for being a Christian is more than making sound professions of faith.
It should reveal itself in practical and visible ways.
Indeed, it is better to keep quiet about our beliefs,
and live them out, than to talk eloquently about what we believe,
but fail to live by it.”
Ignatius of Antioch
"The most precious freedom is life itself.
Our Creator endowed us with the right to life,
but millions of children lose that right every year because of abortion.
In Texas, we work to spare every child from the ravages of abortion,
which is why I am proud to join my fellow governors in protecting the unborn."
Texas Governor Greg Abbott
in press release regarding
Texas’s amicus brief to the United States Supreme Court
regarding Dobbs v. Jackson
Greg Abbot became the Governor of Texas on January 15, 2015. Since then, the State of Texas has executed:
Arnold Prieto, Jr. – January 21, 2015
Robert Charles Ladd – January 29, 2015
Donald Keith Newbury – February 4, 2015
Manuel Vasquez – March 11, 2015
Kent William Sprouse – April 9, 2015
Manuel Fernando Garza, Jr. – April 15, 2015
Derrick Dewayne Charles – May 12, 2015
Lester Leroy Bower, Jr. – June 3, 2015
Gregory Lynn Russeau – June 18, 2015
Daniel Lee Lopez – August 12, 2015
Juan Martin Garcia – October 6, 2015
Licho Escamilla – October 14, 2015
Raphael Don Holiday– November 18, 2015
Richard Allen Masterson – January 20, 2016
James Garrett Freeman - - January 27, 2016
Gustavo Julian Garcia, Jr. - February n16, 2016
Coy Wayne Westbrook – March 9, 2016
Adam Kelly Ward – March 22, 2016
Pablo Lucio Vasquez – April 6, 2016
Barney Ronald Fuller, Jr. – October 5, 2016
Christopher Chubasco Wilkins – January 11, 2017
Terry Darnell Edwards – January 26, 2017
Rolando Ruiz, Jr. - March 7, 2017
James Eugene Bigby – March 14, 2017
TaiChin Preyor – July 27, 2017
Robert Lynn Pruett – October 12, 2017
Ruben Cardenas Ramirez – November 8, 2017
Anthony Allen Shore – January 16, 2018
William Earl Rayford – January 30, 2018
John David Battaglia – February 1, 2018
Rosendo Rodriguez III – March 27, 2018
Erick Daniel Davila – April 25, 2018
Juan Edward Castillo – May 16, 2018
Danny Paul Bible – June 27, 2018
Christopher Anthony Young - - July 17, 2018
Troy James Clark – September 26, 2018
Daniel Clate Acker – September 27, 2018
Robert Moreno Ramos – November 14, 2018
Joseph Christopher Garcia – December 4, 2018
Alvin Avon Braziel, Jr. – December 11, 2018
Robert Mitchell Jennings – January 20, 2019
Billie Wayne Coble – February 28, 2019
John William King – April 24, 2019
Larry Ray Swearingen – August 21, 2019
Billie Jack Crutsinger -September 4, 2019
Mark Anthony Soliz – September 10, 2019
Robert Sparks – September 25, 2019
Justen Grant Hall – November 6, 2019
Travis Trevino Runnels – December 11, 2019
John Steven Gardiner – January 15, 2020
Abel Revill Ochoa – February 6, 2020
Billy Joe Wardlow – July 8, 2020
Quintin Phillippe Jones – May 19.2021
John William Hummel – June 30, 2021
Rick Allen Rhoades – September 28, 2021
Carl Wayne Buntion – April 21, 2022
Kosoul Chanthakoummane – August 17, 2022
John Henry Ramirez – October 5, 2022
Tracy Lane Beatty – November 9, 2022
Stephen Dale Barbee – November 16, 2022
Say it ain’t so, Governor. Say it ain’t so.
"When I talk about pro-life, I talk about the innocence of life at birth…
What you are talking about is justice that is coming 40 years delayed
to families that suffered enormous grief at the hands of murderers.
And the state is going to see that justice is done.''
Doug Ducey, May 4, 2022
Doug Ducey became Governor of Arizona on January 5, 2015. Since then, the State of Arizona has executed:
Clarence Wayne Dixon – May 11, 2022 (The first since 2014)
Frank Jarvis Atwood – June 8, 2022
Murray Hooper – November 16, 2022
Say it ain’t so, Governor. Say it ain’t so.
“We want to be the most pro-life state in the country,
and I want to be the most pro-life governor,”
Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt
April 26, 2021
Kevitt Stitt was inaugurated as Governor of Oklahoma on January 14, 2019. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has set execution dates for twenty-five of the state’s 43 death-row prisoners, scheduling nearly an execution a month from August 2022 through December 2024. Since Sitt’s inauguration, the state of Oklahoma has executed:
John Marion Grant – October 28, 2021
Bigler Jobe Stouffer II – December 9, 2021
Donald Anthony Grant – January 27, 2022
Gilbert Ray Tostelle – February 17, 2022
James Allen Coddington – August 25, 2022
Benjamine Robert Cole, Sr. – October 20, 2020
Robert Stephen Fairchild – November 17, 2022
In November 2022, following his re-election, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt appeared at a prayer rally and said:
“Father, we just claim Oklahoma for you. Every square inch, we claim it for you in the name of Jesus… We just thank you, we claim Oklahoma for you, as the authority that I have as governor, and the spiritual authority and the physical authority that you give me. I claim Oklahoma for you….”
Say it ain’t so, Governor. Say it ain’t so.
"I'm pro-life and unapologetic about it.
As governor, I'll do what it takes to have
the strongest pro-life, anti-abortion laws in the country."
Brian Kemp, March 21, 2018
Brian Kemp was inaugurated as governor of Georgia on January 12, 2019. Since then, the State of has executed:
Scotty Garnell Morrow – May 2, 2019
Marion Wilson, Jr. - June 20, 2019
Ray Jefferson Cromartie – November 13, 2019
Donnie Cleveland Lance – January 29, 2020
Say it ain’t so, Governor. Say it ain’t so.
“As a pro-life conservative,
I believe our Constitutional rights begin at conception.
Fighting for our freedoms also means fighting to defend the unborn.”
Kay Ivey
Opinion piece in Yellow Hammer, April 5, 2018
Kay Ivey was inaugurated as Governor of Alabama on April 10, 2017. Since then, the State of Alabama has executed:
Thomas Douglas Arthur – May 26, 2017
Robert Bryant Nelson – June 8, 2017
Torrey Twane McNabb – Octo ber 19, 2017
Michael Wayne Eggers – March 15, 2018
Dominique Hakim Marcelle Ray – February 7, 2019
Michael Brandon Samra – May 16, 2019
Christopher Lee Price – May 30, 2019
Nathaniel Woods – March 5, 2020
Willie B. Smith III – October 21, 2021
Matthew Reeves – January 27, 2022
Joe Nathan James, Jr. – July 28, 2022
On Wednesday, November 19, 2022, the State of Alabama and the Alabama Department of Corrections were forced to interrupt the second execution in two months and the third since 2018. The state completed an execution in July but only after a three-hour delay caused – at least party – by the same problem with starting and IV line. No other state has had to stop an execution in progress since 2017, when Ohio halted a lethal injection because workers could not find a vein.
Say it ain’t so, Governor. Say it ain’t so.
“Florida will continue to defend its recently enacted
pro-life reforms against state court challenges,
will work to expand pro-life protections,
and will stand for life by promoting adoption,
foster care and child welfare.”
Governor Ron DeSantis
June 24, 2022
Ron DeSantis was inaugurated as Governor of Florida on January 8, 2019. Since then, the state has executed:
Bobby Joe Long – May 23, 2019
Gary Ray Bowles – August 22, 2019
Say it ain’t so, Governor. Say it ain’t so.
On May 11, 2018, Pope Francis announced a revision – Rescriptum “Ex Audientia SS.MI” - to The Catechism of the Catholic Church – the Catholic Church’s official compilation of teachings on a wide range of issues:
“Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good.
“Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state. Lastly, more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.
“Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,’ and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.”
Thank you, Pope Francis. Thank you!
Ad multos annos vivas!
Gloriosque annos, vivas!
Ad multos annos,
Gloriosque annos, vivas!
Vivas!
Vivas!