William White Was Major League Baseball’s First Black Player
Mystery of Baseball: Was William White Game’s First Black?: He Played a Big League Game In 1879 – Then Vanished; Mr. Morris Picks Up Trail (Stefan Fatsis, Wall Street Journal, 1/30/2004) (sub. req’d)
Fascinating Page One article in the Wall Street Journal today on SABR member Peter Morris’s efforts to track down the biographical data for William Edward White. Bill White played one game in the major leagues, filling in at first base for the Providence Greys on June 21, 1879. He went 1-4, scored a run, and made twelve putouts without an error. And he never played in the major leagues again. As the WSJ relates, “The Chicago Tribune reported the next day that Mr. White ‘played the position with remarkable activity and skill for an amateur.’ But even though the Greys’ regular first baseman was out for a month with a broken finger, Mr. White never returned to the lineup.”
Take a look at the photo, a picture of the 1879 Brown University baseball team. Bill White is the player directly behind the team manager. He appears darker complected than his teammates, but the photo isn’t completely clear. The WSJ notes that “Brown admitted black students, but Mr. White identified himself as white on the 1880 census.”
Brown records indicated that Mr. White’s father was an A.J. White. 1880 census records revealed an Andrew J. White, whose “household included a 35-year-old mulatto woman named Hannah White.”
Mr. Morris, the SABR reseracher, found A.J. White’s will in the probate records at the courthouse in Zebulan, Georgia. The will stated: “Item Fourth. All the balance of my Estate, both Real and Personal of Every Kind and description … I do hereby … bequeath unto William Edward White, Anna Nora White, and Sarah Adelaide White, the children of my servant Hannah.”
And there’s the proof. William White was mulatto.
Many people who study baseball history know that two black players – Moses Fleetwood Walker and his brother Welday – played in the major leagues for one year, in 1884, before Jackie Robinson re-broke the color barrier 63 years later. The Walker brothers played for Toledo of the American Association, a rival major league that merged with the National League after the 1891 season. The Toledo franchise only lasted that one year, 1884.
The Walker brothers had previously been thought to have been the first black players to play in the major leagues, and the only ones until Jackie Robinson in 1947. Add William White to that list, and call him the first. And credit the SABR, and its dedicated members, with another important find.