Free Shoeless Joe & Me by Dan Gutman

to him. Whenthe money was literally thrown at him, he tried to give it to the owner of the White Sox and tell him what was going on.
    Shoeless Joe had done all he could. If the Black Sox Scandal was going to be stopped, I would have to stop it myself the next morning.
    â€œCan I ask you a personal question, Joe?”
    â€œShoot,” he replied, still staring intently at the candle.
    â€œWhy didn’t you learn how to read?”
    Joe’s left hand clenched into a fist.
    â€œThere were eight kids in my family,” he said softly. “Six boys and two girls. Ah was the oldest. My daddy didn’t have no money. He worked in a cotton mill. He needed my help. Ah was workin’ in the mill when Ah was eight years old. There was no time for school. None a my family never had schoolin’.”
    â€œBut you could learn now ,” I suggested.
    â€œAh play ball,” he stated simply. “It don’t take no book learnin’ or school stuff to help a fellow play ball. Don’t need to read to hit the curve. Don’t need to write to throw a guy out at the plate or catch a line drive. Ah make more money playin’ ball than a whole lotta folks who can read ’n’ write.”
    â€œWhat about after your baseball career is over?”
    Joe quickly turned away from the candle and looked at me. There was a trace of anger in his eyes.
    â€œLook, Ah’m only thirty,” he said. “Ah got ten good years left if Ah stay healthy. Ah got a long way to go.”
    I knew something about him that Joe didn’t.Within a year, he would be thrown out of professional baseball for the rest of his life. His career would be over very soon. I knew he didn’t want to hear that.
    â€œBut if you learned to read and write—”
    â€œYou think Ah like havin’ everybody think Ah’m stupid?” he snapped. “You think Ah don’t notice when Chick told Katie that maybe Ah don’t know how much money twenty grand is ’cause Ah’m too dumb? You think Ah don’t know Commy wouldn’t listen to me ’cause he thinks Ah’m dumb? You think Ah don’t hear the stuff people shout from the stands? You think Ah like bein’ humiliated? Ah hate it.”
    â€œI’m sorry,” I said. “I was only trying to help.”
    â€œAh tried to learn,” Joe said, more quietly. He hung his head a little. “Katie tried to teach me. Ah just couldn’t do it. Here, look at this.”
    I crawled out of my homemade bed and went to where Joe was sitting. He opened the drawer and took out a fountain pen and some sheets of paper. All of the sheets were blank except for one. The one that wasn’t blank looked like this:

    My eyes opened wide. It looked exactly like the signature Flip Valentini had shown me in his book of famous autographs. Block letters. All capitals. The A was the same. The loop in the J was the same. I remembered that Flip had told me Joe Jackson’s signature was one of the rarest in the world and that it was worth a half million dollars.
    I held my breath as Joe picked up the pen awkwardly and began to write on a blank sheet of paper. He copied the letters slowly and carefully, sticking his tongue out as he labored over the paper. I could have written the words in a few seconds, but it took Joe at least ten minutes. He looked like an artist working on a painting.
    When he was finished, he held the paper closer to the candle so he could see it better.
    â€œAwful,” he muttered, taking the sheet and sticking the corner of it into the flame.
    â€œDon’t burn it up!” I shouted, pushing his hand away from the candle. The tip of the page was charred, but it didn’t ignite. Katie rolled over in the bed behind us but didn’t wake up.
    â€œWhy not?” Joe asked, surprised.
    â€œYou’ll set off the smoke detectors,” I explained.
    â€œThe what ?”
    Oops! I had made another dumb