Moses Fleetwood Walker?

[prewarsports]

OK, before people assume this one is bad automatically hear me out.

I bought a 1905-1909 Oberlin College Scrapbook from the estate of a player on the Football team. Many of the photos show integrated Bands and events and also both the Baseball and Football teams had Black players.

There was a few photos identified as "alumni Baseball Game" from c. 1907 where the players from both teams were former Oberlin players. The catcher in this photo is clearly a tall, thin African American player.

Now, Moses Walker was an alumni of Oberlin, still living in the area in 1907, and played catcher. As far as I know he is the only black player to have played that position for Oberlin that could have played in this game.

Without being able to have a clear look at his face, what do you guys think?

[Jason19th]

While it is certanly possible that its Fleet, I just wanted to give a bit of a historical contexted. This was around the time that Fleet was publishing his treatise "Our Home Colony" which was essentally a call for blacks to consider going back to Africa based on the failures of civil rights reform. While this does rule out Fleet coming back to Oberland for an Alumi game he clearly had some other issues on his mind at the time. I would suggest contacting Oberland. I know that there was a shool paper at the time and I am sure that it would have mentioned Fleet if he had come back for the game. In any event a very neat piece and I would love to see the other images

Holy S*$%! Now that is an awesome photo! Since this can not be proven/disproven to be Fleet Walker I'll offer this for debate:

1) I agree with the above posit. According to "Black Diamond:The Story of Negro League Baseball"... "Fleet was so embittered by his experiences in baseball that he advocated the separation of the races. Walker, was a successful writer and businessman, used his influence to promote the idea that the best chance for black survival was their return to Africa" (p. 32) In this regard, Fleet playing in an integrated game again would be unlikely.
2) He would have been 50 years old. Possible, but tough to play catcher at that age.

The school paper angle might be your best chance since even if coverage is minimal hopefully batteries are named.

[prewarsports]

My only other thought would be that the Varsity Black player on the 1905-1909 Baseball team was playing catcher in the alumni game to fill in, but it does not appear to be him and I have no idea if he was even a catcher (he is wearing a regular fielders glove in the team photo). Here is a photo of that team for comparison. Maybe Fleet would come back and play because they had a black player on the actual baseball team at the time? I am in no way trying to push this issue, just wanted some opinions from you guys on the idea that it could be him. To provide a little context, here is a photo of one of the other "old timers" in full uniform.

Rhys

[Brian Campf]

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[prewarsports]

Robinson was on the regular team (might even be the guy pictured in my team photo) and not an alumni at this point. Not to say he couldn't have caught the game for one of the alumni teams, but he would not have been an "alumni" at this point. It is probably more likely that scenario than Walker, but I guess without seeing a good look at his face it is impossible to tell for sure.

[Brian Campf]

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