Awesome points everyone. It's nice when a community of reasonable people can contribute to a board.

I recently completed a book on the integration of professional baseball by Jimmy Claxton, May 28, 1916. When the project began, I thought Claxton was an anomaly who passed as Native American, and was probably remembered more for his baseball card than integration. I did not understand the scope of both failed and "successful" attempts to integrate the game.

By the end I realized he was just the tip of the iceberg. The nearly anonymous careers of Ernie Tanner, Ike Ward (possibly the first African American manager of a white baseball team, Colville 1913-15), Bruce Petway (who integrated baseball in Oakland long before Claxton, 1904), "Big Chief" Dick Brookins, Owen "Bazz" Smaulding, John Prim, Carlisle Perry, Eddie Jackson, Charley Allen, Lang Akana, Vernon Ayau, Tom "Circus" Mooney, Albert "Smiley" Clayton, Foy Scott, etc.... Were just as fascinating and implausible. These men integrated college teams, and the lower levels of organized baseball out West prior to WW2.

Point being: that one card, the 1951 Topps Magic Bill Matthews probably represents tens or hundreds of other individuals who struggled against exclusion in sports. While an NFL career never materialized for Matthews that could be for any number of reasons. Was he Jackie Robinson? No. Was he Marion Motley or Ben Willis? No. But, I would say any individual who integrated the college or professional gridiron or baseball diamond prior to the Civil Rights Movement (1954-68) was a ground-breaker.