I hope this isn't true, but today someone told me that more than

[Archive]

Posted By: WeWereHereFirst

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/legendary/american_indian_baseball_players.shtml>

The reason I went into baseball as a profession was that when I left school, baseball offered me the best opportunity both for money and achievement. I adopted it because I played baseball better than I could do anything else, because the life and the game appealed to me and because there was so little of racial prejudice in the game. There has been scarcely a trace of sentiment against me on account of birth. I have been treated the same as other men." - Chief Bender

On April 22, 1897 Louis Sockalexis became the first American Indian to become a Major League ballplayer with the National League Cleveland Spiders. Six years later Chief Bender became the first American Indian in the American League and the only American Indian in the National Baseball Hall of Fame to date. The list below is — hopefully — a comprehensive list of former major league baseball players who were also verifiable full-blooded American Indians.

American Indian Baseball Players

by Baseball Almanac


Louis Sockalexis
Penobscot
04-22-1897
05-13-1899

Bill Phyle
Lakota
09-17-1898
09-15-1906

Chief Bender
Ojibwe
04-20-1903
07-21-1925

Lou Bruce
Mohawk
06-22-1904
10-10-1904

Louis LeRoy
Seneca
09-22-1905
04-20-1910

Ed Summers
Kickapoo
04-16-1908
06-01-1912

Chief Meyers
Cahuilla
04-16-1909
10-04-1917

Chief Chouneau
Ojibwe
10-09-1910
10-09-1910

Jim Thorpe
Fox & Sac
04-14-1913
09-25-1919

Chief Johnson
Winnebago
04-16-1913
09-30-1915

Ben Tincup
Cherokee
05-22-1914
09-15-1928

Jim Bluejacket
Cherokee
08-06-1914
07-16-1916

Chief Yellowhorse
Pawnee
04-15-1921
10-01-1922

Ike Kahdot
Potowatomie
09-05-1922
09-21-1922

Pepper Martin
Osage
04-16-1928
10-01-1944

Art Daney
Choctaw
05-25-1928
05-25-1928

Roy Johnson
Cherokee
04-18-1929
04-27-1938

Bob Johnson
Cherokee
04-12-1933
09-23-1945

Euel Moore
Chickasaw
07-08-1934
07-26-1936

Allie Reynolds
Muscogee
09-17-1942
09-25-1954

Jack Aker
Potowatomie
05-03-1964
09-27-1974

Gene Locklear
Lumbee
04-05-1973
10-02-1977

Dwight Lowry
Lumbee
04-03-1984
04-23-1988

Bobby Madritsch
Lakota
07-22-2004
Active

American Indian Baseball Players