While Fowler was the first African-American to play in organized pro ball, Moses Fleetwood “Fleet” Walker was the first to do so in the Major Leagues.  After catching 60 games for the Northwest League’s Toledo Blue Stockings in 1883, Walker stayed with the club when Toledo jumped up to the American Association for the 1884 season.  Walker batted .263 in 42 games in the AA – and then Toledo released him, prompted in large part by anonymous threats.  Walker’s life was even more fascinating outside of baseball.  He was born at a way station along the Underground Railroad and worked as a newspaper editor and an inventor upon the conclusion of his playing career.

63 years after Fleet Walker originally integrated the Major Leagues, the color barrier was broken for good.  A four-sport standout at UCLA, Jackie Robinson only played one season in the Negro Leagues (1945 with the Kansas City Monarchs) before Brooklyn Dodgers president Branch Rickey signed him to a Major League contract.  After a season in the minors with Montreal, Robinson made his National League debut on April 15, 1947.  He would finish the season with a .297 batting average, 12 home runs, and 29 steals, earning the very first Rookie of the Year award.  In 1949, Robinson added the Most Valuable Player award to his trophy case.  Thirteen years later, he became the first African-American to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.  Additionally, Jackie Robinson was the first African-American baseball broadcaster, hired by ABC as an analyst in 1965, and the first baseball player ever to appear on a U.S. postage stamp in 1982.

While Jackie Robinson integrated the National League, it was Larry Doby who integrated the American League.  The star of the Negro League’s Newark Eagles during the early 1940s, Doby jumped straight to the Cleveland Indians in June of 1947, three months after Jackie Robinson’s debut.  A seven-time All-Star, he was the first African-American to appear in both the Negro League World Series and Major League World Series (both of which he won), the first to homer in the World Series, and the first lead the league in home runs and runs batted in.  After retiring as a player, Doby later worked as a scout, an executive and a manager in the Major Leagues.  He was enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1998.

The very first African-American pitcher in the Majors was Dan Bankhead, though he did not experience the same success as Robinson or Doby.  An acclaimed flamethrower, Bankhead won the 1947 Negro League All-Star Game and was snapped up the Dodgers and Rickey, who needed pitching in the worst way.  Bankhead slugged a home run in his first Major League at-bat but was battered for ten hits in three innings.  After three more appearances, the right-hander was demoted to the minors with an ERA of 7.20, having allowed 15 hits and walked eight in only ten innings.  He would return to Brooklyn for the 1950 campaign, posting a solid 9-4 record against an ugly 5.50 ERA.  1951 proved to be another struggle – 27 hits and 14 walks issued in 14 innings – and Bankhead never made it back to the Major Leagues.

Who was the first African-American player to be named team captain?  It was 1964.  The team was the San Francisco Giants.  Their choice was Willie Mays.  Arguably the greatest all-around player to have put on a uniform, Mays dazzled spectators with a thundering bat, lightning speed, and incomparable defense from his debut as a 16-year-old with the Negro League’s Birmingham Black Barons in 1947 through a 22-season Hall of Fame career in the Major Leagues with the Giants and Mets.  Mays cracked 660 total home runs in the Majors, trailing only god-son Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, and Babe Ruth.  He trails no one in career outfield putouts, compiling 7,095 by virtue of his great speed and instincts.  Undoubtedly, Mays is best known for The Catch, a sprinting-over-the-shoulder snare of Vic Wertz’s mammoth blast to centerfield in Game 1 of the 1954 World Series.  Wrote a sportswriter of the play, “It would have been a home run in any other park, including Yellowstone.”

The first African-American umpire in the Major Leagues, Hall of Famer Emmett Ashford worked for U.S. Post Office until the age of 36.  He was 51 years old when he called up to the Majors from the Pacific Coast League in 1966 and quickly established a name for himself with style and flair.  In 1967, Ashford was given the honor of umpiring the All-Star Game.  Three years later, in his very last season, he umpired the World Series between Pittsburgh and Baltimore.  In 1973, the National League welcomed its first African-American umpire, Art Williams.