Moses Fleetwood Walker

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Moses Fleetwood Walker
Moses Fleetwood Walker

Moses Fleetwood "Fleet" Walker (October 7, 1857–May 11, 1924) was a baseball player and author who is credited with being the first African-American to play professional baseball at the major league level.

Contents

[edit] Baseball Career

Walker was born in Mount Pleasant, Ohio, the son of Dr. Moses W. Walker, the first African-American physician in Mount Pleasant. He enrolled in Oberlin College in 1878 and played on the college's first varsity baseball team in the spring of 1881. He then transferred to the University of Michigan law school the following fall. Walker played varsity baseball for Michigan in 1882.

Walker signed with the minor league Northwestern League Toledo Blue Stockings in 1883, in the days before catchers wore any equipment, even to the point of being bare-handed. Walker had his first encounter with future Hall of Famer Cap Anson that year, when Toledo played an exhibition game against the Chicago White Stockings on August 10, 1883. Anson refused to play with Walker on the field. Manager Charlie Morton played Walker, and told Anson the White Stockings would forfeit the gate receipts if they refused to play. Anson then agreed to play.[1]

In 1884 Toledo joined the American Association, a professional baseball league now considered a major league by most baseball historians. Walker made his major league baseball debut on May 1, 1884 versus the Louisville Eclipse. His brother, Welday Walker later joined him on the team, playing in 6 games.

Walker's teammate and star pitcher, Tony Mullane, stated Walker "was the best catcher I ever worked with, but I disliked a Negro and whenever I had to pitch to him I used to pitch anything I wanted without looking at his signals."[2]

Walker suffered a season-ending injury in July, and Toledo ended the year going out of business. Walker returned to the minor leagues in 1885, and played in the Western League for Cleveland, which folded in June. He then played for Waterbury in the Eastern League though 1886.

In 1887 Walker moved to the International League Newark Little Giants. He caught for star pitcher George Stovey, forming the first known African-American battery. On July 14, 1887 the Chicago White Stockings played an exhibition game against the Little Giants. Contrary to some modern-day writers, Anson did not have a second encounter with Walker that day (Walker was apparently injured, having last played on July 11 and would not play again until July 26). But Stovey had been listed as the game's scheduled starting pitcher, in the Newark News of July 14. Only days after the game was it reported (in the Newark Sunday Call) that, "Stovey was expected to pitch in the Chicago game. It was announced on the ground [sick] that he was sulking, but it has since been given out that Anson objected to a colored man playing. If this be true, and the crowd had known it, Mr. Anson would have received hisses instead of the applause that was given him when he first stepped to the bat." On the morning of the day of game, International League owners had voted 6-to-4 to exclude African-American players from future contracts.[3]

In the off-season, the International League modified its ban on black players, and Walker signed with the Syracuse, New York franchise for 1888. In September 1888, Walker did have his second incident with Anson. When Chicago was at Syracuse for an exhibition game, Anson refused to start the game when he saw Walker’s name on the scorecard as catcher. "Big Anson at once refused to play the game with Walker behind the bat on account of the Star catcher’s color," the Syracuse Herald said. Syracuse relented and someone else did the catching.[4]

Walker remained in Syracuse until the team released him in July of 1889.

Shortly thereafter, the American Association and the National League both unofficially banned African-American players, making the adoption of Jim Crow in baseball complete. Baseball would remain segregated until 1946 when Jackie Robinson popularly "broke the color barrier" in professional baseball when he played for the Brooklyn Dodgers' minor league affiliate in Montreal.

[edit] Life After Baseball

Walker was attacked by a group of white men in Syracuse, New York in April, 1891. Walker stabbed and killed a man named Patrick Murray during the attack. The Sporting Life reported "Walker drew a knife and made a stroke at his assailant. The knife entered Murray's groin, inflicting a fatal wound. Murray's friends started after Walker with shouts of 'Kill him! Kill him!' He escaped but was captured by the police, and is locked up."[5]

Walker was charged with second-degree murder and claimed self-defense. He was acquitted of all charges on June 3, 1891. The Cleveland Gazette reported "When the verdict was announced the court house was thronged with spectators, who received it with a tremendous roar of cheers... Walker is the hero of the hour."[6]

Walker became a supporter of Black nationalism and came to believe racial integration would fail in the United States. In 1908 he published a 47-page pamphlet titled Our Home Colony: A Treatise on the Past, Present, and Future of the Negro Race in America. In that pamphlet he recommended African Americans emigrate to Africa: "the only practical and permanent solution of the present and future race troubles in the United States is entire separation by emigration of the Negro from America."[7] He warned "The Negro race will be a menace and the source of discontent as long as it remains in large numbers in the United States. The time is growing very near when the whites of the United States must either settle this problem by deportation, or else be willing to accept a reign of terror such as the world has never seen in a civilized country."[8]

He died May 11, 1924 in Cleveland, Ohio.

[edit] Baseball History

Walker has traditionally been credited as the first African-American major league player. Recent research by the Society for American Baseball Research indicates William Edward White, who played one game for the Providence Grays in 1879, may have been the first. [9]

William Edward White was the son of a white former slaveholder from Georgia and his mixed-race mistress. White attended college at Brown University where he also played varsity baseball. He filled in for one game for the Grays on June 21, 1879 when the Providence team was short-handed.

It is unclear, however, if White's contemporaries in Rhode Island knew of his racial background. White's race is never mentioned in any accounts of his baseball exploits at Brown or with Providence. Furthermore, the 1880 census, as well as several later censuses, indicate his race as "white." He may have been passing as a white man during his time in Rhode Island. [10]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Cap Chronicled, Chapter 4: Cap's Great Shame - Racial Intolerance
  2. ^ Baseball Library entry for Moses Fleetwood Walker
  3. ^ Howard W. Rosenberg, Cap Anson 4: Bigger Than Babe Ruth: Captain Anson of Chicago, page 430, and Cap Chronicled, Chapter 4: Cap's Great Shame - Racial Intolerance
  4. ^ Rosenberg, Cap Anson 4, page 434
  5. ^ Michigan Daily Online article 'A Fleeting ambition'
  6. ^ Cleveland Gazette article from The Ohio Historical Society's "The African American Experience in Ohio, 1850-1920"
  7. ^ Walker, Moses Fleetwood biography
  8. ^ Michigan Daily Online article 'A Fleeting ambition'
  9. ^ espn.com article "Was William Edward White Really First?"
  10. ^ _Providence Journal_ article 15 February 2004: "Who was the First Black Man to Play in the Major Leagues?"

[edit] Additional Reading

David W. Zang, Fleet Walker's Divided Heart (Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1995).

Howard W. Rosenberg, Cap Anson 4: Bigger Than Babe Ruth: Captain Anson of Chicago (Arlington, Virginia: Tile Books, 2006). Adam Mansbach, "Angry Black White Boy or The Miscegenation of Macon Detornay" (Crown/Three Rivers Press 2006) Not about Fleet Walker, but his history and writing, as that of Cap Anson, figure in the engossing and important novel.

[edit] External links

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