Moses Fleetwood Walker
Moses Fleetwood Walker, born around 1857 in Mount Pleasant, Ohio, was a pioneering figure in American baseball and is often recognized as the first Black player to play in the major leagues. He began his journey in sports while studying at Oberlin College, where he also played for a semiprofessional team. Walker made his major-league debut in 1884 with the Toledo Blue Stockings, displaying remarkable skill as a catcher despite facing significant racial discrimination throughout his career. His time in the league was cut short due to the establishment of an unwritten agreement that barred Black players from the major leagues after 1887.
Beyond baseball, Walker held various jobs and engaged in multiple entrepreneurial ventures, including running a hotel and managing a theater. He faced legal troubles, including a notable incident in 1891 involving self-defense against racial violence. Walker's significance extends beyond his athletic achievements; his experiences highlighted the racial tensions of his time and the barriers faced by Black athletes. Despite the challenges, his legacy has been increasingly recognized in recent decades, with honors such as his induction into the Ohio Civil Rights Hall of Fame and annual commemorations of Walker Day in Ohio. He passed away from pneumonia in 1924, and his contributions continue to resonate in discussions about race and sports in America.
Moses Fleetwood Walker
Baseball player
- Born: October 7, 1857
- Birthplace: Mount Pleasant, Ohio
- Died: 1924
- Place of death: Cleveland, Ohio
Significance: Moses Fleetwood “Fleet” Walker was an early professional baseball player and among the first prominent Black professional ball players in what became Major League Baseball. He was also the first Black varsity athlete for the University of Michigan.
Background
Moses Fleetwood Walker was born around 1857 in Mount Pleasant, Ohio, the third son and fifth child of Moses W. Walker and Caroline O’Harra Walker. He had five or six siblings. Sometime before 1870 the Walkers moved to Steubenville, Ohio. There his father worked as a cooper and, later, a pioneering physician and a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church.
When Walker was about twenty, he enrolled in Oberlin College’s philosophy and arts program, where he was part of the class of 1882. He went on to attend law school at the University of Michigan. After only a year at Michigan, however, Walker left school to pursue his baseball career. By that point, the National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs, a predecessor of the modern Major League Baseball (MLB) organization, had formed to govern the emerging sport of baseball.
Baseball Career
Walker was a gifted catcher and an asset to every team he played for. While still at Oberlin, he played for the semiprofessional White Sewing Machine Club in Cleveland, Ohio. When he began law school, he became a star player for the University of Michigan.
During the summer of 1882 Walker journeyed to New Castle, Pennsylvania, about fifty miles north of Pittsburgh, to play for an amateur team called the Neshannocks, or the Nocks for short. Although it was an amateur league, Walker was paid, and he was hailed as one of the best catchers in baseball. Notably, New Castle was the only place where the press never mentioned his race but focused instead on his merit as a player.
Walker went back to school in September of that year, but left his studies in 1883, when he was offered a paid position with Ohio’s Toledo Blue Stockings. That year he and his team won a pennant, which moved them up to the major-league American Association.
As catchers caught barehanded and wore little protective gear, injuries were common. In fact, Walker never wore more than a mask and, occasionally, lightly reinforced leather gloves. Despite that, he was a tireless catcher who caught in sixty of Toledo’s eighty-four games during their pennant year.
On May 1, 1884, Walker made his major-league debut with Toledo in a losing game against the Louisville Eclipse in Kentucky. His brother Weldy, an outfielder, joined the team for a handful of games beginning that July. Walker played in forty-two games for Toledo that season but had to drop out in September due to an injury. During his abbreviated season, he led the league in batting, with a .263 average, and in games played.
By the time Walker healed from his injury, Toledo had returned to the minor leagues, and in 1887 major league officials had made a so-called gentleman’s agreement not to sign contracts with Black players anymore. From 1885 to 1889 Walker played for minor-league teams based in Ohio, Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York before retiring from baseball.
Throughout his brilliant career, however, Walker faced racial discrimination. In an 1881 game for the White Sewing Machine Club, players of the opposing team walked off the field rather than play against him. Even some of his teammates, including the main pitcher, were racists and staunch segregationists who resented playing with Walker. He was often denied service and received taunts and threats on the road.
Life outside Baseball
Walker held several jobs throughout and after his baseball career, including as a hotel and theater proprietor and a railway clerk for the US Postal Service. He also invented and patented artillery shells and equipment for early motion pictures.
In Syracuse, New York, in April 1891, Walker had a physical altercation with a number of White men that began with a racial slur. One of them hit Walker in the head with a rock, and he stabbed the person in response. Arrested and tried for second-degree murder, he was found not guilty by reason of self-defense.
Walker was arrested again in 1898 for mail theft and was convicted. After spending a year in federal prison, he moved his family to Steubenville, Ohio, where he and his brother Weldy ran the Union Hotel as well as a newspaper called The Equator. He also managed the Opera House in Cadiz, Ohio, from 1904 to 1920. Walker then moved to Cleveland and operated the Temple Theater for a time.
Walker died of pneumonia on May 11, 1924. He was buried in Union Cemetery in Steubenville, but his grave was unmarked until 1990, when the Oberlin Heisman Club erected a gravestone for him.
Impact
Walker was the first major league player to play openly as a Black man. The first was William Edward White, a fill-in for one major league game in 1879. White was a formerly enslaved Black man who passed as a White man—a fact that went undiscovered until 2004.
Due to Walker’s talent as a player and the success of his teams, he made it all the way to the major leagues. The then largely White world of baseball, rather than celebrate his achievements, resented them instead, and responded with a racist backlash that ended his major-league career and blocked other Black players’ aspirations. In 1890 the American Association of Base Ball Players officially banned Black players, a policy that would last until Jackie Robinson played first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.
In the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, Walker’s accomplishments gained the recognition. Oberlin selected Walker for its athletic hall of fame in 1990. In 2017 Ohio designated October 7 for annual Walker Day commemorations, and he was inducted into the Ohio Civil Rights Hall of Fame.
Personal Life
In July 1882, Walker married Arabella “Bella” Taylor in Hudson, Michigan. They had three children together, Cleodolinda, Thomas, and George. Bella Walker died of cancer in 1895, and he married another Oberlin classmate, Ednah Mason, in 1898. She died in 1920.
Toward the end of his life, Walker explored the idea of Black Americans emigrating to Africa and wrote on the subject. His experiences both in and out of baseball had led him to believe there was no hope for equality and opportunity in the United States.
Harris, John. “Moses Fleetwood Walker Was the First African American to Play Pro Baseball, Six Decades before Jackie Robinson.” The Undefeated, ESPN, 22 Feb. 2017, theundefeated.com/features/moses-fleetwood-walker-was-the-first-african-american-to-play-pro-baseball-six-decades-before-jackie-robinson. Accessed 4 Nov. 2020.
Helfand, Zach. “First Black Player in Major Leagues? Hint: It Wasn’t Jackie Robinson.” Los Angeles Times, 20 Sept. 2014, www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-fleetwood-walker-20140921-story.html. Accessed 13 Oct. 2020.
Husman, John R. “Fleet Walker.” Society for American Baseball Research, sabr.org/bioproj/person/fleet-walker. Accessed 12 Oct. 2020.
Husman, John R. “May 1, 1884: Fleet Walker’s Major League Debut.” Society for American Baseball Research, sabr.org/gamesproj/game/may-1-1884-fleet-walkers-major-league-debut. Accessed 12 Oct. 2020.
“Moses Fleetwood Walker.” Go Blue: Competition, Controversy, and Community in Michigan Athletics, University of Michigan, michiganintheworld.history.lsa.umich.edu/michiganathletics/exhibits/show/key-players/fleetwood-walker. Accessed 13 Oct. 2020.
Provance, Jim. “Moses Fleetwood Walker Gets Overdue Recognition from State.” The Blade, 20 Sept. 2017, www.toledoblade.com/State/2017/09/20/First-major-league-black-player-gets-overdue-recogniz.html. Accessed 14 Oct. 2020.