by Donn Rogosin

There were many outstanding black baseball players during the early days of baseball history. At the time, however, baseball was predominantly a northern game and most black people lived in the South.

The first black professional player was John W. "Bud" Fowler, who was born in Cooperstown, New York, in 1854. He began his professional career in 1872, and his best position was second base. Fowler "barnstormed," which meant he played on a traveling team of ballplayers who charged admission and challenged local teams in rural areas and in the small towns of the northeastern and midwestern United States.

The distinction of being the first black player in the major leagues went to Moses Fleetwood ("Fleet") Walker. A catcher, Walker played during the 1883 season for Toledo in the American Association, a precursor of the American League. Walker's career began while attending Oberlin College in Ohio, but his time in the majors was cut short by injuries. His brother, Weldy, was also an excellent ballplayer and had a brief major-league career. Weldy became known for one of the earliest and most eloquent attacks on baseball prejudice when he wrote that the only measure of a ballplayer and a man should be "ability and intelligence."

Probably the best black ballplayer in the white major leagues before 1900 was a second baseman named Frank Grant, who hit .340 for Buffalo in the International League in 1886. A Buffalo sportswriter described Grant as a "great all-around player, accurate thrower . . . and swift. I think I can say that Grant is the best all-around player Buffalo ever had."

Unfortunately, racism in baseball and in America was increasing by the turn of the century. Many white owners and some players, including Adrian "Cap" Anson, attempted to impose segregation on baseball by refusing to play against teams that had black players, or by conspiring behind the scenes to get the owners to refuse to hire black players. By the early 1900s, there was an unwritten rule that no black man could play in the major leagues. Black players, however, were developing and strengthening their own teams. They knew that black fans wanted to see good baseball and were eager to support baseball competition at the highest level.

Many stars appeared during the days of independent black baseball, when some local teams developed regional and even national followings. The reputations of three pitchers during this era were so extraordinary that their names became immortal to black fans and sportswriters throughout the land. They were "Smokey Joe" Williams, Dick "Cannonball" Redding, and Wilber "Bullet" Rogan.

Smokey Joe Williams pitched from 1897 to 1932, and, in 1952, was voted the greatest black pitcher of all time by a group of sportswriters from the African American press who had seen him in his prime. "Cannonball" Redding was a hard-throwing pitcher who on a number of occasions pitched and won both halves of a doubleheader. Bullet Rogan was a crafty star for the Kansas City Monarchs, one of black baseball's greatest teams. He once struck out 17 batters while pitching a perfect game.

The most feared batter and most respected player of that era was Oscar Charleston. He had power at the plate, a fine arm, and speed. Charleston played center field in his youth and first base as he grew older.

Other notable heroes from this period include infielders Judy Johnson (third base), Newt Allen (second base), Biz Mackey (catcher), John Henry Lloyd (shortstop), and outfielders Martin DiHigo and Cristobal Torriente. Both of these outfielders were black Cubans who came to the United States to play baseball but encountered the same color barrier as their black American counterparts.

However, the most important individual of this period, or indeed of Negro baseball history, was Andrew "Rube" Foster. Foster was a talented pitcher who earned the nickname "Rube" when he defeated a famous white major leaguer, Rube Waddell of the Philadelphia Athletics, in a celebrated matchup between a white major-league team and a black team in 1902. Later Foster became a manager and then owner of the Chicago American Giants, one of the greatest teams in Negro baseball history.

The records of the great players of the Negro Leagues such as Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson were chronicled in the black press. The fame of these players who made their reputations in the early days of black baseball lived on in the folklore and folk memory of black sports fans and black sportswriters who saw them in their prime. When the time came to honor African American ballplayers of the past by including them in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, their election was a tribute to their skill and to the determination of black people to preserve the memory of their great baseball heroes.

Donn Rogosin served as a consulting editor for this issue.