Jimmy Claxton (born December 14, 1892, in Wellington, British Columbia, Canada; died March 3, 1970, in Tacoma, Washington, USA[1]) was a black baseball pitcher, and the first black man to play organized white baseball in the twentieth century.
On May 28, 1916, Claxton temporarily broke the professional baseball color line when he played two games for the Oakland Oaks of the Pacific Coast League. Claxton was introduced to the team owner by a part Native American friend as a fellow member of an Oklahoma tribe. A candy company — the Zeenut candy company — quickly produced a baseball card for Claxton. Within a week, a friend of Claxton revealed that he had both African American and Native American ancestors, and was promptly fired. It was nearly thirty years before another black man played organized white baseball.
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Baseball by Ken Burns; New York: Alfred Knopf, 1994
