On Sept. 4, 1884 — 130 years ago — the Pittsburgh Alleghenys (not yet the Pirates) lost to the Toledo Blue Stockings, 4-2, at Toledo’s League Park.

Most likely, fewer than 1,000 spectators watched these two struggling teams finish out their seasons. The fans, unaware of the moment’s significance, witnessed a young catcher, “Fleet” Walker, leave the field. More than six decades would pass before an African-American player set foot on a major league baseball diamond again.

It has been 67 years since Jackie Robinson’s debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers. But before Jackie, there was Fleet.

Born in 1856 in Mount Pleasant, Ohio, and raised in Steubenville, about 40 miles west of Pittsburgh, Moses Fleetwood Walker had parents of mixed racial ancestry. His extraordinary father healed community members as both an ordained minister and a medical doctor. Fleet attended Oberlin College and gained a reputation as a tough catcher in an era with little protective equipment. Most often, he caught gloveless. Perhaps his longevity was fueled partly by his willingness to play such a damaging and punishing position.

Fleet transferred to the University of Michigan in 1882, married Bella Taylor and signed with the New Castle Neshannocks about 40 miles north of Pittsburgh. Though the “Nocks” were an amateur, all-white team, they paid for Fleet’s skilled catching services.

Contemporary newspapers used the words “colored,” “mulatto” and “quadroon” in referring to Fleet, while some of the fans and players used a myriad of slurs. Some players threatened to boycott games if Fleet took the field. Yet Fleet persevered, and in 1883, he joined a new team in the high minor leagues — the Northwestern League’s Blue Stockings.

Future Hall of Famer and Chicago White Stockings player/​manager Cap Anson objected to playing against Walker in an exhibition game and incited several subsequent boycott threats. After the Blue Stockings won the league championship that year, officials of the American Association, a professional major league, invited the Toledo franchise to fill a vacancy in their organization.

With the exception of an earlier, one-game substitute player — who passed as a white man — Fleet became the first African-American to play in the majors. On May 30, 1884, in the second game of a double-header, 5,000 spectators witnessed the 27-year-old’s Pittsburgh debut at the Alleghenys’ new Recreation Park.

All told, Fleet saw action in 42 of the Blue Stockings’ 110 games that season, five of them alongside his younger brother, Weldy, the second African-American to play regularly in the majors. A .263 batting average (when the league’s average was .240) ranked him in the top third of catchers in batting (though he ranked in the bottom third in fielding percentage). Hard-throwing pitcher and Irish immigrant Tony Mullane refused to talk to or to take signals from his backstop, though decades later he would proclaim Walker “the best catcher I ever worked with.” When Mullane was on the mound, Fleet never knew whether a fastball, change-up or curve would arrive.

Fleet’s two seasons with Toledo proved especially painful. After breaking his thumb the previous season, a broken rib suffered before the days of chest protectors sidelined him in mid-July of 1884. Catching without a glove would leave his fingers partially disfigured later in life. While batting, he was hit by pitches six times in 1884, a team high. Clearly, some pitchers were aiming for him. Being sidelined by an injury at that time also meant not being paid. The Sporting Life implied that he earned $2,000 for the six-month season while the average laborer made $10 per week. The money was important, as the Walkers now had two children to support.

On Sept. 3, the Pittsburgh Alleghenys lost to the Richmond Virginians, 8-4. It was their 20th loss in 23 games. Late that afternoon, African-American porters loaded their bags onto a train for the team’s trek from Richmond to Toledo.

The next day, Mullane started for Toledo against Pittsburgh’s Jack Neagle in front of a crowd that likely numbered fewer than 1,000. Fleet, in his sixth game since breaking his rib, caught Mullane one last time.

Toledo trailed 2-1 when Fleet flied out in the eighth inning, but teammates rallied afterward to win, 4-2. The last game of Fleet’s career was typically quick for the era, lasting 1 hour and 28 minutes.

The following day, five men from Richmond sent Charlie Morton, who was Toledo’s manager and had been an outfielder for the Alleghenys’ inaugural 1882 team, an ominous telegram:

“Dear Sir: We, the undersigned, do hereby warn you not to put up Walker, the Negro catcher, the days you play in Richmond, as we could mention the names of 75 determined men who have sworn to mob Walker if he comes on the ground in a suit. We hope you will listen to our words of warning so there will be no trouble, and if you do not, there certainly will be. We only write this to prevent much bloodshed, as you alone can prevent.”

Fleet did not play for the rest of September, and injuries most likely forced his release Sept. 29. The unofficial “Color Line” or “Gentleman’s Agreement” soon took hold, with owners agreeing not to sign black players.

Fleet played the next six seasons in the minor leagues and passed away 40 years after his last at-bat in the majors.

His impact truly surpassed the world of professional baseball. As David Zang wrote in his 1995 biography, “Fleet Walker’s Divided Heart: The Life of Baseball’s First Black Major Leaguer,” he was “a gifted athlete, an inventor [with four patents], a civil-rights activist, an author, and an entrepreneur [opera house manager].”

Sometimes finding himself at the center of controversy, Fleet killed a man in self-defense and served jail time for federal mail robbery. He saw the rise of the Negro National League and the Eastern Colored League before dying in 1924. It would be 70 years after Fleet’s debut when Curt Roberts became the first African-American to play for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1954.

Fleet Walker’s brief career provides a poignant example of how baseball’s segregation was not immediately established. His pioneering efforts introduced the possibility of a different future for the game.

Craig Britcher (ccbritcher@heinzhistorycenter.org) is curatorial assistant at the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum at the Heinz History Center.

First Published: October 19, 2014, 4:00 a.m.