Wednesday, October 13, 2010

19th Century Baseball Pioneer Bud Fowler


The original owner of the Giants baseball organization, John T. Brush, offered a tryout with his ballclub to this Black man in the 1880's before pressure forced him to give up on the idea due to racial segregation of the time. Bud Fowler was the first Black pro baseball player. You can read his-story here:

John 'Bud Fowler' Jackson


1860s During the Civil War, soldiers, black freemen and emancipated slaves play the game across the widening map of America.


1867 Colored World Championship.

1878 John "Bud Fowler" Jackson becomes the first black pro baseball player, for a team in Chelsea, Mass.

1880s Black teams such as the St. Louis Black Stockings and New York Cuban Giants are formed.

1883 Chicago White Stockings star Cap Anson, pictured right, refuses to play against the Toledo Blue Stockings unless black catcher Moses "Fleetwood" Walker is removed from the field.

1887 The International League bans future contracts with black players, starting an era of segregation that will last until 1945.

1890s "Colored" teams, in an effort to survive, take to the road, and barnstorming - a term originally used to describe a flying circus - is born.

1901 Baltimore Orioles manager John McGraw attempts to play black second baseman Charlie Grant by disguising him as a Cherokee named Tokohama.

1920 Owner-pitcher Andrew "Rube" Foster of the Chicago American Giants joins with fellow "colored" team owners to form the seven-team Negro National League.

1920 The six-team Negro Southern League debuts.

1923 Independent team owners Ed Bolden and Nat Strong organize the six-team Eastern Colored League.

1924 The first Negro World Series is played between the Negro National League's Kansas City Monarchs and the Eastern Colored League's Hilldale club of Darby-Yeadon.

1931 The death of Rube Foster, the Great Depression, and the flight of the popular Kansas City Monarchs doom the Negro National League, leaving the Negro Southern League as the only "major" league for black players.

1933 A new Negro National League forms.

1937 The seven-team Negro American League is born and includes the Kansas City Monarchs as well as the Homestead Grays, who feature Josh Gibson, also known as the "black Babe Ruth."

1945 Brooklyn Dodgers owner Branch Rickey signs Kansas City Monarchs infielder Jackie Robinson and assigns him to Montreal of the International League.

April 15, 1947 Robinson debuts with Brooklyn, becoming the first black major-league baseball player of the modern era.

July 1947 Cleveland owner Bill Veeck signs Larry Doby, pictured right, making the former Newark Eagles slugger the first black American League player.

1948 Leroy "Satchel" Paige, the Kansas City Monarchs pitching legend, becomes the oldest rookie ever when he signs with the Cleveland Indians. He later becomes the first black player to pitch in a World Series.

1952 With more than 150 former Negro-leagues players now integrated into pro ball, the Negro American League folds.

1955 Brooklyn Dodgers all-star catcher Roy Campanella wins the National League's most-valuable-player award, the third such award won by the Philadelphia-born future Hall of Famer (the others were in 1951 and 1953).

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