Upstate NY native Bud Fowler, first Black pro baseball player, makes Hall of Fame

Bud Fowler Portrait

Bud Fowler poses in his Keokuk, Iowa, baseball club uniform in 1885. (Photo by Mark Rucker/Transcendental Graphics, Getty Images)Getty Images

Though the Baseball Hall of Fame is located in Cooperstown, the story of Abner Doubleday inventing the game there has long been debunked by baseball historians.

Cooperstown was the boyhood home to a real pioneer of the game, though, and on Sunday Bud Fowler — recognized as the first African-American professional baseball player in history — was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Hall’s Early Baseball Era committee.

Fowler was one of six players selected for the Hall of Fame on Sunday. Buck O’Neil, Gil Hodges, Minnie Minoso, Jim Kaat and Tony Oliva also will be inducted in Cooperstown next year. Results of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America voting will be announced on Jan. 25.

Fowler was born John W. Jackson in Fort Plain, and spent much of his youth in Cooperstown, according to a biography published by the Society for American Baseball Research.

In 1878, the Lynn Live Oaks of the International Association called on Fowler, who had been playing for an amateur team, to pitch three games to fill in for an injured player and on May 17 of that year, Fowler tossed a two-hit shutout against the London (Ontario) Tecumsehs to become the first known African-American to play pro baseball. One of Fowler’s three starts while with the Live Oaks was a 9-3 loss against the Syracuse Stars.

That was the start of a nomadic existence in professional baseball for Fowler over the next few decades, playing all around the country. While Fowler’s first professional appearance was as a pitcher, the position he played most was second base. His stops included a stint in Binghamton of the IA in 1887. While he hit .350 in his time there, he left after white players on the team threatened to quit if Fowler and another black player weren’t released.

Fowler went on to play with more than a dozen teams, both integrated and all-black. He helped form the Page Fence Giants barnstorming team, and organized and managed clubs as well. He retired to Frankfort, New York, and died there in 1913. He was buried in an unmarked grave, but in 1987, SABR placed a marker on his grave.

Cooperstown named the street leading to Doubleday Field “Bud Fowler Way” in 2013.

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