Cap Anson
(Library of Congress)
Blacks, in particular, stirred Anson’s feelings of supremacy. In his 1900 ghostwritten autobiography, the retired baseball legend wrote unblushingly of Clarence Duval, batboy and mascot of the White Stockings, as a “little coon” and a “no account nigger.” Such virulently racist comments appeared frequently in baseball books and articles of the time—as acceptable, if not entirely respectable, public language. Sportswriter Henry Clay Palmer wrote at length about “the little darkey” Duval in such books as his 1892 volume Sights Around the World With the Base Ball Boys. With sadistic relish, Palmer described in detail the various humiliations the players inflicted on the friendless boy, from pelting him with food to dressing him up like an organ grinder’s monkey, then taking him out in public on a leash.
St. Louis Browns manager Ted Sullivan shared Anson’s fondness for reducing blacks to crude comic stereotypes—much like the producers of the minstrel shows that had made Lew Simmons a star. In Sullivan’s memoirs, a collection of the stories he loved to tell to get laughs, Ted wrote of local men who attended an autumn exhibition game in 1883 in Pensacola, Florida. “In center field the cedar trees were packed with coons, so thick were they on the trees that they resembled a flock of blackbirds or crows.” Serving up some of the dialect humor that was immensely popular in the nineteenth century, Sullivan quoted one “big coon” who was initially unimpressed when One Arm Daily stepped up to pitch against the home club: “Why dem St. Louis babies thinks so little of our white club, dat they are putting in one-armed men on dem.” When the crowd saw Daily neatly pick up a ball as if he had two arms, another man supposedly turned and cried, “Which of you niggers said dat dat one-armed man couldn’t play?” Later in the game, Daily drove a line drive into the trees that struck one of the spectators painfully in the back, to the amusement of his fellow African Americans. “O Lordy, if dat man had two hands I would have been killed,” the victim cried, according to Sullivan.
As of that 1883 exhibition, a mere twenty years had passed since President Abraham Lincoln had issued his Emancipation Proclamation, theoretically freeing all slaves in states still at war with the Union, as a matter of military necessity. Yet even Lincoln longed to be rid of African Americans altogether, having concluded that whites and blacks could never get along. “You and we are different races,” Lincoln told black leaders during a White House meeting in August 1862. “We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races.” Most blacks refused, justly insisting they were Americans as much as anyone. As the war went on, some 200,000 African Americans, with Lincoln’s strong encouragement, joined the fight to save the Union and win the freedom of their race. Their strength turned the tide of the war and added enormous impetus to the movement for equal rights. But many white northerners surely shared Lincoln’s original hope that blacks would leave. “Who believes that Whites and Blacks can ever amalgamate in America? Or wishes it to happen?” asked Walt Whitman in a May 1858 editorial in the Brooklyn Eagle. “Nature has set an impassable seal against it. Besides, is not America for the Whites? And is it not better so?”
Many white baseball players certainly felt it was better so—and because of their fierce opposition to integration, which long predated the twentieth century, baseball’s color line was not to be ended for good until 1947. Citing a desire to avoid divisive controversy, the National Association of Base Ball Players passed a December 1867 resolution “against the admission of any club which may be composed of one or more colored persons.” Although they were denied that association’s sanction or assistance, blacks went right on playing America’s game, however. The number of black clubs exploded during these post—Civil War years. The Washington Evening Star of September 21, 1869, reported on a contest at the National Baseball Grounds between the Alerts, a newly formed black club, and the Olympics, an established white club. Far from inflaming political divisions, the game brought out a large crowd of peaceful, happy people. “Good feeling prevailed throughout, the game being equally enjoyed by the contestants and spectators,” the Star said.
By the late 1860s, Octavius Catto, an infielder and captain of the superb all-black Pythians of Philadelphia, had emerged as perhaps the game’s first black star. An extraordinary man, Catto was an educator and civil rights leader, fighting for the right of blacks to ride on Philadelphia’s horsecars, a crusade that led to legislation banning segregation of the city’s public transit. In the next decade, another black star rose to prominence, a brilliant young pitcher named John “Bud” Fowler. The son of a barber in Cooperstown, New York, Fowler became an amazingly skilled hurler. In April 1878, as a twenty-year-old star for a semipro team in Chelsea, Massachusetts, he stunned the baseball world by beating the National League champions, the Boston Red Stockings, 2–1. Soon the pitcher would become the first African American in professional organized baseball, landing a contract with the Lynn (later Worcester) Live Oaks of the International Association, baseball’s second best league at the time. Another member of the league, the Maple Leaf Club, of Guelph, Ontario, signed him to play in 1881, but when he showed up, his putative teammates “refused to play with him on account of his being a colored man.”
By 1883, attention was turning to a new young black star. Fleet Walker was the son of mulatto parents. His father was an ambitious and intelligent man, a barrel-maker turned physician turned minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the town of Oberlin, Ohio, a hotbed of abolitionism in the mid-nineteenth century with a proud tradition of supporting black students. Fleet managed to attend the preparatory school of Oberlin College in 1877, and to move up to the college itself a year later. There, he obtained an education far beyond any achieved by Adrian Anson and most other white ballplayers, studying Greek and mathematics and reading Livy, Horace, and Cicero. Along the way, he also learned to play piano, another mark of social distinction. His surviving transcript shows that his classroom attendance dropped off the longer he stayed—a trend that coincided with his growing obsession with an increasingly popular sport on campus called baseball. In 1882, he went to the University of Michigan to play ball.
Walker had his heart set on becoming a professional ballplayer at a time when the doors that had been briefly pried open by Reconstruction were slamming shut again on blacks all over America. Though his skin no doubt worked against him, Walker had something that made some baseball executives willing to overlook it: talent as a catcher, which teams sorely needed. Although the National League barred black players, by August 1881 Walker had won a professional job playing for the Cleveland Whites, a fine team sponsored by the White Sewing Machine Company boasting several future major-league players. The presence of a black man among the Whites stirred interest, but seemingly no animosity—until the club ventured south, to Louisville, where it quickly became apparent that Walker would not be treated as just another ballplayer. The first sign of trouble was at the St. Cloud Hotel, where the management barred him from eating breakfast with his teammates. This was no isolated incident: he frequently had to find his own accommodations, since blacks were increasingly being barred from “white” hotels, restaurants, and even some railroad passenger cars. As word spread that a black ballplayer had arrived in the city, local rednecks began mulling over their response to this innovation. That muggy afternoon, while the thermometer climbed to 89 degrees, more than two thousand people paid their way into Eclipse Park to see what would happen.
To the disappointment of many, the Louisville players adamantly refused to take the field with Walker. “The prejudice of the Eclipse was either too strong, or they feared Walker, who has earned the reputation of being the best amateur catcher in the Union,” said the Courier-Journal. In any event, Walker was instructed to watch the game from the stands in his street clothes. The Whites’ first baseman—not yet hardened in the difficult and dangerous art of catching—attempted to take his place. When his hands gave out after one inning, however, the sweating crowd,
curious to see Walker’s stuff, “at once set up a cry in good nature for ‘the nigger.’” The Eclipse club’s vice president, defying the wishes of his own players, went down on the field and personally asked Fleet to play.
The twenty-three-year-old catcher—who must have felt great trepidation, appearing in the South for the first time and facing white supremacists who emphatically did not want him there—was uncertain whether to risk playing. As he walked in front of the grandstand, the crowd began chanting, “Walker! Walker!” He hesitated, but finally threw off his coat and vest and stepped out to play in his shirtsleeves and pants. Furious that Walker was about to play, Eclipse second baseman Fred Pfeffer and pitcher John Reccius stalked off the field. The crowd hooted, and a new argument erupted.
When it appeared that the Louisville players would make good on their threat to walk out, the Cleveland manager again relented, agreeing to bench his star. He didn’t want to lose his share of the gate receipts. But even the manager’s abject surrender did not satisfy some in the crowd. They were still outraged by the mere presence of a black man. While Walker was putting his collar and jacket back on, a man named Charles Fuller rushed onto the field and grabbed Fleet in an attempt to forcibly eject him from the ballpark. In that explosive moment—Walker might have faced a lynch mob, had he defended himself—others raced out and broke Fuller’s grip. Walker somehow kept his cool, straightened his clothing, walked back to his seat, and watched the game. “When it was seen that he was not to play, the crowd heartily and very properly hissed the Eclipse club and jeered their misplays for several innings,” while cheering on the visiting club, according to the Courier-Journal—to no avail, since the Eclipse won, 6–3.
The city’s newspapers hissed along with the critics. With dripping sarcasm, the Louisville Commercial headlined its game account “The Utter Respectability of the Eclipse Nine Will Not Permit a Mulatto Catcher.” It called on the club, made up of ill-educated, hard-drinking men who were not in the least respectable, to rethink its shabby behavior and let Walker play the next day—and to “have a watchman to guard Mr. Fuller who offered such an indignity to Mr. Walker.” Nevertheless, that night, Walker “shook the dust of Louisville from his feet . . . and went home.”
Two years later, the Toledo Blue Stockings of the Northwestern League, a new minor league, snapped up the young star. “He is said to be a plucky catcher, a hard hitter and a daring and successful base-runner,” the New York Clipper reported. Walker “is . . . said to be one of the most efficient [catchers] in all points of play . . . to be found in the country,” the Missouri Republican added. Still, the notion of a black man playing with whites caused a ruckus at the Northwestern League’s meeting on March 14, 1883. The Peoria Reds petitioned the circuit to outlaw blacks, but a majority of owners—after an emotional debate—refused, apparently concluding that Walker was such a good gate attraction that he was worth the risk of inflaming feelings. Even so, such integration could probably never have happened were it not for Walker’s great personal strengths. In a profession dominated by crude and violent men, here was an educated, polite, and steady fellow who comported himself with dignity and pride. He worked hard and never showboated. Moreover, as the incident in Louisville had demonstrated, he possessed tremendous courage and self-restraint, qualities a black ballplayer would need for survival if he chose to compete with whites.
Moses Fleetwood Walker
(Transcendental Graphics/theruckerarchive.com;
reprinted with permission)
WHEREAS WALKER HAD BRAVELY CROSSED OVER THE COLOR LINE to play baseball in white leagues, a surprising number of skilled black ballplayers were earning money in 1883 by playing on all-black teams. The “Negro clubs”—including such teams as the Cleveland Blue Stockings, the Cincinnati Brown Stockings, the Louisville Mutuals, and the Geneva Clippers—were sharing in that year’s baseball boom, tapping into African Americans’ obvious passion for the game. A growing black middle class was eager to part with their quarters to watch fine athletes of their color play the game.
The St. Louis Black Stockings were one of the best. They had been formed by black saloonkeeper Henry Bridgewater to compete in an allblack professional league. “When the league failed to organize we were compelled to make engagements with teams composed of white players,” Bridgewater explained in an interview. The Black Stockings received strong praise from local sportswriters, even if they got fewer column inches than white clubs. When the Black Sox opened against a local nine of white amateurs on April 24, the Missouri Republican predicted the game would “not only be a novelty but . . . also open somebody’s eyes regarding the ball-tossing abilities of the colored element.” As it turned out, the black ballplayers—splendid in their uniforms of blue hats, bright white shirts and knickers, and jet-black stockings—clobbered the white team 8–1. “Several of the colored players worked like trained professionals,” the Globe-Democrat noted admiringly. Seated among the crowd at Compton Avenue Park that day were white stars from the St. Louis Browns—George McGinnis, Hugh Nicol, the Gleason brothers, and Charlie Comiskey—who were curious to see how well the black men played.
The Black Stockings embarked on a nationwide tour later that week, and the Globe-Democrat proudly predicted that the St. Louis team would “make mince-meat of the colored clubs throughout the country.” The National Police Gazette took a mocking tone, branding the Black Stockings “the champion moke club of St. Louis” and reporting that they would be taking on other “coon clubs” in the Midwest. In September, the paper reported that the “coons are doing good work in St. Louis, as they have knocked out all of the coon clubs with which they have come in contact.” The Register in Rockford, Illinois, reported the Black Stockings’ defeat of the city’s vaunted white club, the Rockford Reds, with the headline, “The Coons Carry Off the Cake.” In covering these games, some white sports-writers acknowledged African Americans’ talent, but felt compelled to spice up their copy with racist jokes. The Missouri Republican, reporting on the Black Stockings opener, noted that “Little Harris,” the team’s catcher, “got caught between the bases yesterday, but wriggled through like an eel, although five men were on the line after him. A good-sized buck who ornamented the pavilion, threw up his hands which darkened the field and exclaimed, as Harris got second: ‘Look at de little scamp! Fo’ de Lord, his yere’s waggin yet.’” When the Black Stockings arrived in Cincinnati during a tour that included Indianapolis, Dayton, Cleveland, Akron, and other cities, sportswriter O. P. Caylor touted the upcoming game as a “rare opportunity to see how colored men play ball. They are said to be peculiar in their style on bases and in the field.” Caylor joked lamely that the Black Stockings would be wearing “flesh-colored hose,” and he predicted that black players would mostly request high pitches. “Then if they are hit it will be in the head and will not hurt.”
Ignoring such jibes, black audiences turned out in large numbers. Even in a cold drizzle, some seven hundred people—about five hundred of them black—watched the visiting Black Stockings take on the all-white Cincinnati Shamrocks, a professional independent club competing for business against the superior Reds. Most of the crowd rooted for the black visitors rather than the white home team. Ren Deagle, who went on to pitch well for the major-league Reds that season, struck out thirteen Black Stockings batters and led the Shamrocks to a 4–0 victory. But Caylor had to admit he was impressed with the visitors. “The colored club were a well behaved lot of young fellows, and played a plucky game.”
As the summer went on, black baseball proved tremendously popular. A June series between the Black Stockings and the black Louisville Mutuals drew crowds as big as those attending the American Association’s Louisville Eclipse games. In Detroit, “business was practically suspended in the barber shops” when the St. Louis Black Stockings and Louisville Mutuals paid a visit to Recreation Park—barbershops then being common black-run businesses in America. A Detroit Evening News reporter joked that the Black Stockings played so well that ther
e was a “strong suspicion” that their pitcher, William “Bud” Davis, was actually Jim McCormick, the great National League star, “blacked up,” minstrel-style. The spectators enjoyed themselves thoroughly, mixing it up with the players. At one point, the Black Stockings’ best hitter was “dancing around the home plate in a frenzy of expectation, while the pitcher fondled the ball and delivered it with provoking deliberation.” Growing tired of the crowd’s taunts, the batter supposedly “flung down his bat, glared ferociously at the stands and shouted: ‘What’s de matter wid who? What’s de matter wid you?’ But the crowd gently guyed and exhorted him ‘not to get wild,’ and there were no further interruptions.”
When the Mutuals came to St. Louis in August, a fine crowd of 1,200 turned out—most of them, this time, “curious or enthusiastic Caucasians.” Once again, the Black Stockings’ best hitter amused the audience with his gyrations at the plate, which were apparently much more emphatic than those of white hitters of the time. Interestingly, a description of him in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat has a remarkably modern ring: “He was not quiet for a moment, but divided his attention between casting furtive glances at the pitcher and tapping the home plate with his bat. His motions were nervous, peculiar and indescribable. Bobbing up and down like a jerky jack-in-the-box, he lost no opportunity to drum the plate. First it was one rap, then one, two, then straighten up for an instant and repeat.”
Other blacks played a less dignified role in 1883 baseball—as team mascots. These young boys, whom the players considered good luck charms, were kept on hand to collect bats, fetch foul balls, and run errands. They also served as handy targets for vindictive players. Early in the season, the Athletics hired a black batboy and mischievously named him “Joe Quest,” after the famous white ballplayer. Joe the mascot quickly lost his job when the A’s began losing, as the players, searching for a scapegoat, branded him a “Jonah.” Similarly, when Metropolitans manager Jim Mutrie got the urge to hire a mascot, he “hunted up a little darkey . . . to guard his team’s bat bags and bring them luck.” According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, Mutrie’s “little ‘coon’” turned out to be a Jonah as well. “Jim started out last night to look for a bigger one, and it was rumored that he captured one,” a joking reference to fugitive slave hunting.
The Summer of Beer and Whiskey Page 18
