The Negro Leagues: Celebrating Baseball's Unsung Heroes
PIONEERS Two men Moses Fleetwood Walker and Bud Fowler helped blaze the path for black players at the highest ranks of pro baseball MOSES FLEETWOOD WALKER Moses Fleetwood Walker regarded by most historians as the first African American to play major organized baseball was born in 1856 in Mount Pleasant Ohio In 1883 he signed with the minor league Toledo Blue Stockings While with Toledo Walker ran into the Chicago White Stockings and outspoken racist Cap Anson Anson threatened to cancel the game if Walker played But the Blue Stockings didn't budge and Anson eventually gave up on his demand In 1884 Toledo joined the American Association a major league Walker s major league debut was a disaster He made at least four errors in the game and didn't record a hit He suffered a season ending injury in July and Toledo folded after the season In total Walker played 42 major league games batting 263 Walker's baseball career ended in 1889 The business owner publisher and inventor remained an advocate for civil rights until his death in 1924 BUD FOWLER Bud Fowler grew up in Cooperstown New York the future home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame Fowler spent about 25 seasons playing pro ball He gained his first real measure of fame in 1872 when he took the mound and defeated Boston s National League team 2 1 Fowler understood that the game's highest profile position was pitcher and that it would be coveted by his white teammates So to improve his chances of playing with the top pro teams he switched to second base Fowler was one of the great players of the time Yet no National League team would pick him up According to an 1885 article in the popular sports newspaper the Sporting Life The poor fellow's skin is against him Those who know say there is no better second baseman in the country After his playing career Fowler helped found the Page Fence Giants which enjoyed a brief existence as the class of black baseball Yet for all his success Fowler battled poverty and illness after his baseball career ended He died in 1913 penniless and buried in an unmarked
Despite such logic and despite abuse from fellow players and fans some leagues allowed black players to take the field alongside white players Early black legends such as Bud Fowler Moses Fleetwood Walker and Welday Wilberforce Walker made their marks alongside white teammates By 1887 many fans especially in the northeastern United States were used to watching a sport that was at least partially integrated But that was about to change A LINE IN THE SAND After the Civil War the North and South struggled to rebuild a nation that had been ripped apart by conflict Part of the mending of their shattered union was the Compromise of 1877 The agreement effectively ended the openly hostile relationship that had existed between the two sides since the end of the war As a result the white-dominated Democratic Party took control of the southern states Among the measures these politicians enacted were laws mandating public separation between blacks and whites Ten years later these Jim Crow laws as they were called would change the shape of pro baseball It all started with a single game Cap Anson a future Hall of Famer had been one of the most popular players in the early pro game By 1887 Anson was the manager of the Chicago White Stockings the present-day Chicago Cubs On July 14 1887 his team was scheduled to play an exhibition game against the integrated Cap Anson played pro baseball for 27 years mostly for the Chicago White Stockings Anson opposed integrated baseball THE SEGREGATION OF PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL 9
Newark Little Giants When Newark’s George Stovey a talented black pitcher who had played in Canada took the field Anson reportedly shouted racial slurs demanding that Stovey leave It wasn’t the first such incident for Anson He was even by the standards of the day an outspoken racist Four years earlier he’d said his team wouldn’t play against an integrated team though they eventually took the field This time Anson wasn’t going to back down The Little Giants in need of the money from the game relented Stovey was removed from the game He watched from the dugout alongside catcher Moses Fleetwood Walker At the moment the events of July 14 1887 may not have seemed important But that very day the International League voted to avoid such situations in the future The league agreed that no further contracts would be offered to black players The league cited Jim Crow laws in the South arguing that including blacks would lead to clashes with legalized segregation Soon the National League and the American Association followed suit By the 1890s the brief era of integrated pro baseball was effectively over Blacks and later other minorities were barred from the big leagues Some have dubbed Cap Anson the father of segregated baseball And while his positions may seem indefensible to modern observers some historians note that Anson really had no power to ban Since African Americans weren’t offered contracts by major-league teams in the 1890s they formed teams of all-black players 10 THE NEGRO LEAGUES
STANDING OPPOSED The segregation of baseball was widely accepted at the time Yet some called out the injustice Among them was the Newark Sunday Call which published the following in 1887 If anywhere in the world the social barriers are broken down it is on the ball field There the best man is he who plays best Even men of churlish disposition and coarse hues are tolerated on the field In view of these facts the objection to colored men is ridiculous Meanwhile Welday Wilberforce Walker a black player in the Ohio State League and brother to Moses Fleetwood Walker issued a plea for the ban to be repealed in 1888 He wrote The law is a disgrace to the present age and casts derision at the laws of Ohio the voice of the people that say all men are equal There should be some broader cause such as lack of ability behavior and intelligence for barring a player rather than his color blacks from the game Those decisions came from team owners and to a lesser degree from white fans whose ticket sales endorsed the practice THE BARNSTORMING ERA Integrated pro baseball at the highest levels was ending But even before the International League’s 1887 decision baseball was largely segregated Players like Stovey and Walker were the exception rather than the rule A few black players had played on integrated teams before 1887 but the vast majority played on all-black teams THE SEGREGATION OF PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL 11
