Baseball Integrated 1901

In 1901 during spring training future Hall of Famer John McGraw, the Manager of the Baltimore Orioles of the newly created American League signed a Cherokee 2nd Baseman named Chief Tokohama. In reality 'Tokohama' was Charlie Grant an African American who played with the Columbia Giants (who actually played in Chicago). However Charles Comiskey (owner of the Chicago White Sox) and members of the press discovered 'Tokohama's' identity. While McGraw would continue to insist Grant was Cherokee, he was not with the team when they arrived in Baltimore on April 4th, returning to the Columbia Giants on the 6th. So the scenario is what if 'Tokohama' remained undiscovered for at least a few games into the American League season. What would be the impact of an African-American playing in the first games of the American League. Would he be pressured out of the league as in OTL. What would be the future of an AL-NL partnership and integration in baseball.
 
Two words: Fleet Walker. The same thing happens to Tokohama as happened to Walker - opponents refuse to play if they don’t “get that (Negro) off the field.”
 
Two words: Fleet Walker. The same thing happens to Tokohama as happened to Walker - opponents refuse to play if they don’t “get that (Negro) off the field.”
There were two Walkers (minor point) and it didn't help matters that the idiot leading the opposition was Cap Anson, the Ty Cobb of his day in virtually every way...
 
There were two Walkers (minor point) and it didn't help matters that the idiot leading the opposition was Cap Anson, the Ty Cobb of his day in virtually every way...

I’v dread that Cobb wasn’t especially racist given his time and place of birth, but yeah, he was a certain degree of racist and a huge degree of asshole. I also knew Anson was a racist to some extent but wasn’t aware if he was a huge asshole as well.

But yes, a big name opposing any sort of social change will likely nip it in the bud at that point.
 
Two words: Fleet Walker. The same thing happens to Tokohama as happened to Walker - opponents refuse to play if they don’t “get that (Negro) off the field.”
Yeah he'd probably get kicked out, but considering this is the start of the American League there would probably be a wider impact. The whole thing might turn off some National Leaguers from jumping ship to the junior circuit.
 
I’v dread that Cobb wasn’t especially racist given his time and place of birth, but yeah, he was a certain degree of racist and a huge degree of asshole. I also knew Anson was a racist to some extent but wasn’t aware if he was a huge asshole as well.

But yes, a big name opposing any sort of social change will likely nip it in the bud at that point.
Buck O'Neil, the Negro Leagues star, said this about Cobb, IIRC "Honey, Ty Cobb didn't hate colored people. Ty Cobb hated people."
 
There were two Walkers (minor point) and it didn't help matters that the idiot leading the opposition was Cap Anson, the Ty Cobb of his day in virtually every way...

Just finished reading an account of baseball in the 1880s and assuming that was accurate (the account was/is The Summer of Beer and Whiskey, by Ed Achorn), Anson was a thorough bigot of the first order, going above and beyond the set-in-concrete racial prejudices of the Gilded Age. From that account, he was also utterly intolerant of any failings on the part of his teammates. Not sure how all that came about, especially the over-the-top prejudices, since he was from a small town in Michigan, as opposed to the postwar South, for Ty Cobb (and it's pretty well established that Cobb was a sociopath: his own teammates couldn't stand him apart from his obvious talent). Long story short, Anson was pretty much a northern version of Cobb: a total jerk and bigot who had significant baseball talent.
 
Top