Color Line Drawn
In the off-season, the International League modified its ban on black players, and Walker signed with the Syracuse, New York franchise for 1888. In September 1888, Walker had his second incident with Anson. When Chicago was at Syracuse for an exhibition game, Anson refused to start the game when he saw Walker's name on the scorecard as catcher. "Big Anson at once refused to play the game with Walker behind the bat on account of the Star catcher’s color," the Syracuse Herald said. Syracuse relented and someone else did the catching.
Walker remained in Syracuse until the team released him in July 1889.
Shortly thereafter, the American Association and the National League both unofficially banned African-American players, making the adoption of Jim Crow in baseball complete. Baseball would remain segregated until 1946 when Jackie Robinson "broke the color barrier" in professional baseball playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers' minor league affiliate in Montreal.
Read more about this topic: Moses Fleetwood Walker
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