Stephanie Liscio
Moses Fleetwood Walker Testimony
Every year on April 15, Major League Baseball acknowledges Jackie Robinson’s breaking of the color barrier in 1947. What MLB and fans do not acknowledge is the fact that Robinson was actually the “re-integrator” of the game – another African American player integrated the game more than 60 years before Robinson would don a Brooklyn Dodgers uniform to play professionally.
When Moses Fleetwood Walker stepped onto the field with the Toledo Blue Stockings of the American Association in 1884, he became the first African American to play in the majors. Walker’s career in professional baseball would be cut short however; team owners made a “gentleman’s agreement” that they would eliminate African American players from their teams. This “agreement” would last until the 1940s. While Walker did continue to play baseball at the minor league and semi-pro levels, African Americans were completely locked out of professional baseball during the 1880s.
Walker was a fascinating individual whose connections to the state of Ohio extend both on and off the baseball diamond. Born in 1857 in Mount Pleasant, Ohio, a stop on the Underground Railroad, Walker and his family soon moved to Steubenville, where his father eventually became one of the first African American physicians in the state.
As a young man Walker attended Oberlin College, and also played baseball at the school. Toledo had a minor league team in the Northwestern League prior to their major league entry in the American Association; that minor league team signed Walker in 1883. After his signing, the Toledo Blade said, “Walker has played more games and has been of greater value behind the bat than any catcher in the league.” When the executive committee of the Northwestern League met prior to the 1883 season, some team owners fought bitterly to exclude Walker from the league based on his race. In the end, Walker would take the field with the minor league Toledo club in 1883.
Hall of Famer Cap Anson brought his Chicago White Stockings to Toledo for an in-season exhibition game during the 1883 season . Anson, a noted racist, didn’t want to take the field if an African American man was going to be playing as an equal. Anson grudgingly allowed his players to participate in the game, but ominously stated that he would play that game, but “won’t play never no more with the (racial slur) in.” The city of Toledo and the Toledo Blade were supportive of Walker though, who would stay with the Toledo team as they moved to the major leagues for 1884. After Walker’s days playing baseball he worked as an inventor, an author, and an entrepreneur. He managed a number of facilities – in 1885 he assumed the proprietorship of the LeGrande House, a hotel-theater-opera house in Cleveland. Walker also owned a hotel and motion picture house in Cadiz, Ohio later in his life. He spent most of his life in Ohio, and eventually died in Cleveland in 1924. Walker is buried at Union Cemetery in Steubenville.
Ohio has major significance when it comes to the history of African Americans, particularly with African Americans and sport. Jesse Owens, gold medal winner at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, spent much of his childhood in Cleveland and was a graduate of the Ohio State University. Larry Doby integrated the American League with the Cleveland Indians in 1947, just 11 weeks after Jackie Robinson re-integrated the game. The Indians also had the first African American manager in major league baseball, with Frank Robinson in 1975.
Walker gets significantly less attention than these other men, despite the fact that he was a pioneer that dealt with extremely harsh, racist conditions. People always express shock to learn that baseball was integrated, and re-segregated, before Jackie Robinson. However, Walker deserves to be remembered for his contributions to the history of the game, and to the state of Ohio. He fought racism and segregation in order to play professional baseball, just like Robinson and Doby did more than 60 years later. Walker’s story doesn’t have a happy ending; he was forced from the game and remained angry and frustrated about that for the rest of his life. We can correct this mistake, and make sure that Walker is remembered for the hardships he faced, and the lasting contributions he made to baseball and to history.