II.

Segregation in Baseball

Before the 20th century several predominantly white teams fielded black players. The first black player to become widely known was John Jackson. Born in 1858 in Fort Plain, New York, Jackson spent his childhood in Cooperstown, New York. For unknown reasons, he played baseball under the name John “Bud” Fowler. The earliest mention of Fowler as a player appeared in 1878, when he pitched for a team in Chelsea, Massachusetts. Fowler also played second base for several other primarily white minor league clubs during the 1870s and 1880s.

In 1883 manager Cap Anson of the Chicago White Stockings (later the Chicago Cubs) announced that he would not allow his team to play any team that had black players on its roster. When the White Stockings played Toledo, the team’s black catcher, Moses Fleetwood Walker, was kept out of the starting lineup, although he joined the game later. In 1887 Anson carried out his threat, and a game with Walker and black pitching star George Stovey in the opposing team’s lineup was canceled. Other owners and managers later adopted Anson’s policy. Fleet Walker and his brother, Welday Wilberforce Walker, were the last black players in the major leagues for the next 60 years.

Although excluded from the major leagues, a handful of black players, including Fowler and Fleet Walker, continued to play in the International League, a step below the major leagues. In 1887, however, the directors of the International League voted six to four not to sign any more contracts with black players. Current players were allowed to remain on their team’s roster, but increasing abuse from fans, sportswriters, and opposing players soon forced them out of the league. Despite the discriminatory policy of the major leagues and the International League, at least 70 black athletes managed to find employment on integrated minor league teams before 1900. But by 1900 an unwritten “gentlemen’s agreement” among team owners excluded blacks from the minor leagues as well. The exclusion of blacks from major league and minor league baseball continued until 1947.