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The story goes that Joe Jackson became "Shoeless" Joe Jackson when, back in his days as a 19-year-old minor-leaguer in the Carolina Association, he once played a game in sock feet because his new pair of spikes were late arriving, which was hella Paleo of him. A sportswriter for the Greenville (S.C.) News was then moved to call him Shoeless Joe (source: SABR).
And that True and Amazing Base Ball Tale brings us to this ...
Shoeless Joe-endorsed shoes!
Selz Shoes churned out -- breaking news forthcoming -- shoes (!), from 1871 until going out of business during the Great Depression. An early partner in the shoe-making firm? A German immigrant named Charles H. Schwab, who's not to be confused with the Bay Area purveyor of wholesome investment-banking products.
In a fitting bit of symmetry, Shoeless Joe, in order to satisfy the "work or fight" edict during World War I, made his way to Delaware to build battleships and, on the side, he played a little ball in the Bethlehem Steel League. The proprietor of said league? Charles M. Schwab, grandson of the aforementioned Charles S. Schwab.
(Wink of CBS eye: Ebay, from whom all blessings flow)
