Ohio Pioneer Paved the Way Before Jackie Robinson, catcher Moses Walker was a trailblazer By Larry Lester Recently, at the Jackie Robinson Conference at Long Island University in Brooklyn, New York, professor Sidney Gendlin from Eastern Michigan University gave a presentation on the unknown Moses Fleetwood Walker. A man from a different chapter in baseball history, Walker shared many common traits with Jackie Robinson. In Branch Rickey's time, the idea of an African-American playing in the Major Leagues was not new, just not popular. Before Robinson, before both World Wars, before the Negro Leagues started, spurted and died, and even before the turn of the century, there was another trailblazer. While Robinson was the first African-American to break the color barrier in modern times, there was "Fleet" Walker, the original pioneer of integrated baseball.
Unlike Robinson, Walker did not have a supporting mentor like Branch Rickey, but like Robinson, he was the lone soldier in his battle to synthesize our national pastime. Walker's page in history starts with the newly formed Toledo Blue Stockings in 1883. As a bare-handed catcher, he played in 60 games and batted .251, to help Toledo capture the Northwestern League championship. When Toledo joined the Major League-sanctioned American Association the next year, Moses Walker became the first African-American Major League player. Star teammate against him Walker's Major League career was limited to 42 games as he shared catching duties with Jim "Deacon" McGuire, who went on to play 26 big league seasons. The same opportunity would not be afforded to Mr. Walker. Like Robinson's racial confrontation with southern teammate Dixie Walker in 1947, this Walker battled with the team's star hurler, Tony Mullane. Mullane claimed Walker, " ... was the best catcher I ever worked with, but I disliked a Negro and whenever I had to pitch to him I used to pitch anything I wanted without looking at his signals."
The next year, Walker was released from the team. After spending two uneventful seasons in the Western and Eastern Leagues, he signed with Newark, of the prestigious International League, in 1887. There he joined forces with pitcher George Washington Stovey, to form the first all-Negro battery in white baseball. 1887 proved to be an opportune season for black players, as seven men of color appeared on six teams. That year, on July 14, the "Father of Apartheid Baseball," Adrian "Cap" Anson threatened Newark officials to bench Walker and Stovey, or forfeit the game. It was here that Anson shouted his infamous remarks, "Get that n***** off the field, there's a law against that!" Anson, an excellent player and future Hall of Famer, had clout on and off the field. The ban begins Soon after, league officials of the American Association and the National League announced that teams would not be allowed to hire black players in the future, because of the "hazards" black players imposed. Walker jumped to Syracuse, in 1888, and helped them win a league championship the next year, hitting a meager .216. Walker bowed out of baseball at age 33, in 1890. Although never an outstanding hitter, Walker was "fleet" of foot, and an aggressive baserunner like Jackie Robinson.
Moreover, Walker's biggest assets were his catching ability and his powerful throwing arm. Walker, like Robinson, was a college-educated man. Walker attended the progressive Oberlin College in Ohio, and later attended the University of Michigan. While Robinson lettered in four sports at UCLA, Walker achieved success in baseball. Likewise, neither man earned a college degree. Like Jackie Robinson, who penned three autobiographies; Fleet Walker, in 1908, wrote his views on America's racial inequalities in a book called Our Home Colony. Later, Walker published a newspaper in Steubenville, Ohio, appropriately named The Equator. While Robinson was a restaurant and banking executive, Walker owned and operated an opera theater in Cadiz, Ohio, and received several patents for his motion picture ingenuity. Both men were scholars, well spoken, businessmen, authors, and culturally aware of their bookmarks in history. Walker was the son of a doctor, while Robinson was the offspring of a Georgia sharecropper. While Walker was an inventor, Robinson invented creative ways to win ball games. Around 1922, Walker returned to Cleveland, Ohio, where he died in 1924, at age 67. He is buried in the family plot in Union Cemetery in Steubenville, Ohio. His modern-day counterpart, Jackie Robinson died almost 50 years later, at age 53, and is buried in Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, near the site of the former Ebbets Field. Both men fought Jim Crow. Fleet bruised his knuckles and lost the first round. Robinson bloodied his nose and won the fight. Larry Lester is the co-author of "The Negro Leagues Book". He is an author, researcher and historian. He resides in Kansas City, Missouri.