Origins
Formal beginning of segregation followed the baseball season of 1867. On October 16, the Pennsylvania State Convention of Baseball in Harrisburg denied the colored Pythian Baseball Club. Two months later the National Association of Base Ball Players decided to ban "any club including one or more colored persons." As baseball made the transition toward becoming a professional sport over the next decade, and the NABBP dissolved into competing organizations in 1871, professional players were no longer restricted by this rule and, for a short while – in 1878 and again in 1884 – African American players played professional baseball. Over time, they were slowly excluded more and more. As prominent players such as Cap Anson steadfastly refused to take the field with or against teams with African Americans on the roster, it became informally accepted that African Americans were not to participate in Major League Baseball.
Still after 1871, formal bans existed only in minor league baseball. In 1884, in response to the Toledo Blue Stockings of the American Association having Moses Fleetwood Walker, the first black man to play major league baseball, on their roster, Cap Anson of the Chicago White Stockings (one of the most beloved and respected players at the time) threatened to sit out an exhibition game with them if Walker played. Anson backed down when he learned that he would forfeit a day's salary if he did so. A few years later in 1887 Anson, in response to the possibility of the Newark Little Giants hiring the African American pitcher George Stovey, threatened not to play any club who had a black man on their roster.
In part due to Anson's influence and of those of other white players, on July 14, 1887, the directors of the International League voted to prohibit the signing of additional black players – although blacks under contract, like Frank Grant of the Buffalo Bisons and Fleet Walker of the Syracuse franchise, could remain with their teams. Grant and Walker stayed through the 1888 season.
Shortly thereafter, the American Association and the National League both unofficially banned African-American players, making the adoption of racism in baseball complete.
By 1890, the International League was all white, as it would remain until 1946 when Jackie Robinson played for the Montreal Royals.
Read more about this topic: Baseball Color Line
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