Martin Luther King Day

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Posted By: cmoking

Any pre-war cards of African-American players? Let's see them!

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

Went on to play a year with the Blue Stockings, major league.

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Posted By: Bob

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Posted By: cmoking

TBob- who is that?

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Posted By: Max Weder

Jimmy Claxton.

Max

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Posted By: Bob

Jimmy Claxton, the last African-American to play professional baseball with Whites until Jackie Robinson. He was supposed to have been a Native American but his friends who came to the game to cheer him on, were all Black. That was his last game.

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Posted By: Mike W

.. and supposedly, by chance, Zeenut's photographers came by during the week in which Claxton was on the team's roster.

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Posted By: pete

credited being the first black player in major league baseball instead of robinson?

just curious

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Posted By: JimB

Pete,
He is credited with being the first black player. Jackie is credited with breaking the color barrier (that had been in place for 50+ years).
JimB

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Posted By: pete

now that you mention it, "color barrier" is the correct term for jackie....i've heard "first black player" so much i forgot about "color barrier"....thanks for info!

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Posted By: gregor197

Claxton is not considered the first African American major leaguer, simply because the Pacific Coast League was not a major league in 1916!

In terms of cards of pre-war black players, this one got a lot of press around here recently:


(1887 Syracuse Stars, Bob Higgins - middle row, bottom)

As did the 1887 picture of Frank Grant and the Buffalo Bisons.

There are several other extant photos of integrated professional minor league teams from the late 19th century, although they are not really in card form.

Here is the 1885 Keokuk Iowa team with Bud Fowler.

There are also photos of the 1883 Toledo team with Fleet Walker, and the 1888 Syracuse team with Walker and Higgins and a few other pictures here and there.

There are dozens of pictures of pre-war integrated college baseball teams.

Here is the 1901 University of Wisconsin team [It's hard to tell from the pictures but Julian Ware (sitting in front of the guy with the bowtie) and Adelbert Matthews (sitting in front of Ware) were African American.]

Here is the 1904 Ohio Wesleyan team with Charles Thomas (back row, middle). [And a young Branch Rickey as coach!]

Here is the 1904 Harvard Baseball team with William Clarence Matthews.

There are numerous others, like Paul Robeson who played baseball at Rutgers and Cum Posey who played baseball at Duquesne....

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Posted By: Matt Goebel

One of the first great five-tool players

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Posted By: Brett

how about Moses Fleetwood Walker, he played for Toledo i think in 1884.

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Posted By: gregor197

Walker did play for Toledo in 1884, but the team picture was not taken until September of 1884, after Walker had been released due to an injury. So, the 1884 Toledo team picture does not include Walker, even though he played sixty some games for them.

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Posted By: Bruce Babcock

Shav Glick, who retired from the Los Angeles Times this week after a sports writing career of 70 (!) years was a teammate of Jackie Robinson at Pasadena City College. He wrote an article in 1938 in which he said, paraphrasing, that if baseball ever integrated, Jackie Robinson would be the guy to do it. He quoted Jimmie Dykes as saying, in 1938, after watching Jackie play third base (Dykes' position) that there was no one in the big leagues at that time who could play third as well as Jackie, and but for the color of his skin he would be signed immediately by a major league club.