Jackie Robinson Day: Remembering those who came before
Jackie Robinson Day is an important date on the baseball calendar. However, it is important to remember those black players in the majors who came before.
On April 15 every year, MLB celebrates Jackie Robinson Day. It is the anniversary of Robinson smashing the color barrier, entering the Brooklyn Dodgers lineup to stay. His success helped pave the way for other teams to integrate, with the entire league finally being integrated in 1959.
However, with Robinson breaking the color barrier comes the erroneous belief that he was the first black player in MLB history. As it turns out, there were two or three other black players before Robinson, all of whom played between 1879 and 1884. In fact, it was due to the success of one of those players that the informal color barrier began, with Cap Anson as the main instigator of such an action.
Jackie Robinson Day allows us the opportunity to remember the trials and tribulations that the Brooklyn Dodgers infielder faced as he was tasked with being the first black player of the modern era. It is a reminder of the racism and vitriol that he faced every time he set foot on the diamond. It is also a reminder that those issues did not disappear with integration, as black players still face racist fans and taunts to this day. We may have progressed as a society, but there is still a long way to go.
While we honor Jackie Robinson, let us also honor those black players who came before them. Here are their stories.
Even if Bill White was the first black player in the majors, his inclusion on such a list is relatively controversial.
It is known that White played one game for the Providence Grays back in 1879. He was 1-4 with a strikeout and run scored in the batter’s box, and handled all 12 of his chances at first flawlessly. White was the starting first baseman for the Brown University baseball team at the time, and was a fill in at first for Providence due to an injury to Joe Start.
White had an interesting background. He was born in 1860, the son of Andrew Jackson White, a merchant and plantation owner. White had three children with Hannah White, one of his slaves who was of mixed race. Bill was sent to a boarding school in Providence, and then eventually to Brown University to continue his education.
Where the controversy comes from involves how White represented himself. While he would have been considered black in his native Georgia, he passed as being white in the north. That background may have landed White his opportunity with Providence; although, had his actual lineage been known, it may have explained why he only had that one outing despite his relative success.
He was something of a mystery following his time in baseball. It was known that he had moved to Chicago, where he worked as a bookkeeper and a draughtsman. White married, and had three daughters. However, in 1917, his trail disappeared, as he was lost in the official records. Eventually, a death certificate for White was discovered, as he passed on March 29, 1937. What he did in those 20 years between his disappearance and his passing are a matter of speculation.
Based off of ancestry, Bill White could be considered the first black player in MLB history. However, as he passed himself off as being white, his inclusion is still somewhat controversial.
Moses Fleetwood Walker, remembered as Fleet, was a truly remarkable being.
He was a rarity on the diamond when he played, and not just for his ancestry. Walker was college educated, as he went to Oberlin College and the University of Michigan. He and his brother Welday both played on the baseball teams there, with Fleet becoming a star. He was quickly paid to play on various teams, his prowess with the bat and behind the plate something to behold.
That ability garnered the attention of professional baseball teams, leading to Walker joining the Toledo Blue Stockings in 1884. He fared well offensively, producing a .263/.325/.316 batting line that was worth a 107 OPS+, although injuries held him to just 40 games. His batting average may not seem that great, but the Blue Stockings as a whole had a .231/.268/.305 batting line. Deacon McGuire, the Blue Stockings main backup catcher, hit at a .185/.217/.252 rate. Meanwhile, their third catcher, Tug Arundel, had just four hits in 50 plate appearances, none of which went for extra bases.
A quick look at Walker’s defensive numbers would lead one to think that he struggled with the glove. He had 72 passed balls that year, the most in the American Association. Amazingly, that is not the major league record, as Rudy Kemmler had 114 passed balls in 1883. Yet, those passed balls were not entirely Walker’s fault, as Tony Mullane would purposely throw different pitches than Walker called for. Yet, even though Mullane would purposely cause Walker grief due to his racist beliefs, he also called him the best catcher that he ever worked with.
However, racism would rear its head. A group of players, led by Cap Anson, led to Walker being excluded from the majors. He almost came back in 1887, when John Ward was impressed by Walker’s skill after an exhibition game, but Anson, the biggest star in baseball, held enough sway to stop that from happening.
Walker still played in various minor leagues where his race was not an issue. He partnered with George Stovey to be the first black battery in professional baseball, although fans referred to the duo as the “Spanish Battery.” When Walker left the International League following the 1889 season, he was the last black player to suit up in the league until Jackie Robinson himself.
Walker remained in the spotlight after his playing days. His time in Toledo allowed him to purchase the LeGrande House, an opera house and hotel in Cleveland. He became an inventor, filing four patents, including one for a design that fired artillery shells with gunpowder instead of compressed air.
He also had trouble with the law. Walker was accosted by four men outside of a saloon, where he was taunted with racial slurs and had a rock thrown at this head. He stabbed one of the group, leading to his arrest on second degree murder charges. The all white jury found Walker not guilty, much to the delight of the courthouse. Walker did spend time in prison later, as he was arrested for mail fraud in 1899.
Later in life, he became a respected businessman, particularly in regards to movie theaters. He patented several inventions in regards to improving film reels to show those films. He and Welday became co-editors of a newspaper called The Equator, which dealt with racial theory and Black nationalism. His ideas later became a book, Our Home Colony, espousing the theory that black people needed to move back to Africa. That book is considered the most scholarly book ever written by a baseball player.
Walker passed away on May 11, 1924, succumbing to lobar pneumonia at 67 years old.
Even though Welday Walker did not have as long of a career as his brother Fleet, he holds the distinction of being the last black player to debut in the majors until Jackie Robinson.
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Due to the Toledo Blue Stockings being hammered by injuries, Welday joined his brother Fleet on the diamond. An outfielder, the younger Walker played in only five games, with four hits, including a double, in his 18 plate appearances. He had six chances in total in the outfield, making two errors on those plays. However, he never received a chance to show more at the major league level due to the informal ban on black players.
Welday continued playing baseball in the minors, where, by 1887, 13 black players were playing in what were considered white leagues.
However, in 1888, the Tri-State League banned black players, leading to outrage from Walker. he wrote a letter to the league which was later published in The Sporting Life, where he demanded to know why the game was discriminating against black players. He never received an answer to his inquiry, which the publication called unanswerable as there was no reason for it.
Even during his playing days, Welday was active in the fight for equal rights. He brought a civil rights lawsuit against a roller skating rink that refused entry to he and several friends. Later, he became active in politics, helping to form the Negro Protective Party after he felt the Republican governor did not do enough to investigate the lynching of a black man in Urbana, Ohio. Eventually, he returned to the Republican Party, and sent a congratulatory letter to Harry Clay Smith, owner and editor of the Cleveland Gazette in recognition for the job the publication did in getting black people to vote for Warren G. Harding.
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He also had many business interests, typically operating those ventures with his brother. During Prohibition, Welday became a bootlegger, and remained politically active. He passed away on November 23, 1937, having never married.