The Philadelphia Pythians and Baseball’s Struggle for Racial Equality

William J. Kovatch, Jr.

            In 1947, Jackie Robinson burst on the scene, breaking the color barrier that plagued the major leagues for seventy years.  Adept with the bat and quick on the base path, Robinson helped make the Dodgers perennial contenders and eventually World Champions in 1955.

            Robinson’s accomplishments were made possible by Dodger General Manager Branch Rickey, one of the game’s greatest innovators.  Through Robinson, Rickey was exorcizing his own demons.  As the manager of the Ohio Wesleyan University baseball team in the early twentieth century, Rickey’s star catcher was Charles Thomas, the only black player on the team.  Rickey watched as Thomas encountered racism across the Midwest, and was refused lodging during the team’s road trips.  The memory of the mistreatment Thomas suffered haunted Rickey for decades.

            The torment Robinson suffered was personified in Phillies manager Ben Chapman.  Chapman, known for his bigoted behavior towards Jewish players during his Yankee playing days, hurled racial epithets form the dugout when the Phillies first visited Brooklyn in the 1947 season, and encouraged his players to do the same.  National League President Ford Frick rebuked Chapman.  Still, Robinson was confronted with bigotry again when the Dodgers visited Philadelphia, and the Benjamin Franklin Hotel refused Robinson a room.  Nonetheless, Robinson agreed to be photographed with Chapman to create goodwill in the sport.

            While despicable, the treatment that Robinson received was unfortunately not unexpected.  The first black man to play baseball professionally in the major leagues was Moses Fleetwood Walker.  Fleet Walker broke into the American Association in 1884 with the Toledo Blue Stockings.  Like Robinson, Walker endured harassment and discrimination wherever his team played.  When his Blue Stockings were set to play an exhibition game against the National League’s Chicago White Stockings, Chicago’s player-manager Cap Anson had it written in the contract that no black players would be in Toledo’s line-up.  Anson continued to refuse to play exhibition games where the opposing team fielded a black player.  Anson’s bigotry helped fuel decisions by the National League and the American Association to exclude blacks from their player ranks.

            The story of baseball has been a story of the struggle for equality between blacks and whites.  As the popularity of baseball spread in the mid-nineteenth century, blacks and whites alike formed clubs to play the sport.  But segregation permeated baseball, with teams generally being formed along racial lines.

            One of the more influential teams of the mid-nineteenth century was the Philadelphia Pythians.  The Pythians were founded by Jacob C. White, Jr., a prominent educator in the Philadelphia public school system.  White served as the principal of Roberts Vaux Consolidated School from 1864 to 1896, and turned the school into a successful model for the education of African American youth.

            White’s boyhood friend and classmate, Octavius V. Catto, also a prominent educator in Philadelphia, joined him in his venture into athletics.  Catto, who played shortstop and acted as the team captain, was known for his hitting abilities, leading the Pythians to success against many Delaware Valley and Pennsylvania-based black baseball teams. 

            Both White and Catto were activists for equality for African Americans, both during and after the Civil War.  White and Catto served on a committee to recruit black men to serve in the Union Army.  The two also founded the Pennsylvanian Equal Rights League, which advocated for the observation of full civil and political rights for black Pennsylvanians.  After the war, Catto campaigned to end segregation in Philadelphia’s street car service, and remained vigilant in pushing for the rights of African Americans to vote.

            Catto used his time with the Pythians not only as an athletic endeavor, but also as an opportunity to discuss political and economic issues with black men from other cities.

            Although black and white teams from the same city often had cordial relations, the good will only went so far.  The Pythians, for example, often used the home field of the Athletic Base Ball Club of Philadelphia for important matches.  However, the Athletics would not play against black teams.  Indeed, black teams were excluded from tournaments and matches that could lead to a chance to play for a championship.

            Catto and the Pythians strove to play against the white teams to demonstrate their equality.  In the fall of 1867, White attended a meeting of the Pennsylvania Association of Amateur Base Ball Players to apply for membership for the Pythians.  White reported that while he received sympathy from the members present, he was persuaded to withdraw the Pythians’ application quietly in order to avoid the humiliation of a negative vote.

            In December of 1867, the Pythians applied for membership in the National Association of Base Ball Players.  The nominating committee recommended against the admission of any teams who fielded black players, saying, “If colored clubs were admitted there would be in all probability some division of feeling whereas, by excluding them no injury could result to anybody, and the possibility of any rupture being created on political grounds would be avoided.”

            Colonel Thomas Fitzgerald, one of the initial financial backers of the Athletics and editor of a newspaper called The City Item, also supported equal rights for blacks, and helped the Pythians schedule and promote two games in 1869 against white teams.

            The first took place on September 3, 1869, against the oldest of the Philadelphia ball clubs, the Olympic Ball Club.  The Olympics won 44-23.  The second game took place against Colonel Fitzgerald’s own City Item Nine on October 17, 1869.  The Pythians triumphed 27-17.

            Sadly, Catto’s relentless press for racial equality led to his assassination in 1871.  The Republican “machine” controlled Philadelphia politics, and was widely supported by African Americans.  Irish American Democrats controlled the southern districts in the city, and sought to prevent blacks from voting.

            The Philadelphia mayoral election was held on October 10, 1871.  Gangs of white males roamed the streets of mostly black neighborhoods to discourage African Americans from voting.  Violence ensued.  But Philadelphia’s police force was staffed mostly by Irish immigrants, who supported the Democrats and offered no protection to black voters. 

            Catto went out to vote that day and to encourage other African Americans to do the same.  As he returned home near 8^th and South Streets, an Irish Democrat named Frank Kelly shot and killed him.  Kelly fled the city and remained on the lamb for six years.  When he was found and extradited, he faced trial for the murder of Catto.  However, an all-white jury acquitted Kelly.

            Catto’s death, which was widely mourned among the African American community, also spelled the end of the first Philadelphia Pythian team.

            Baseball race relations have seen their share of tragedy and triumph.  But despite the bigotry that permeated the sport, and indeed American society, baseball has been used as a tool to promote greater equality.  Pioneers like White, Catto, Walker and Robinson paved the way for more African American players, who now demonstrate their skills on the same field as white, Latino and Asian players.

 

References

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Casway, Jerold, “September 3, 1869: Inter-racial baseball in Philadelphia,” Inventing Baseball: The 100 Greatest Games of the 19th Century, edited by Bill Felber (2013).

“Charles Thomas (Ohio Wesleyan) – Inspiration to Branch Rickey,” Black College Nines, http://blackcollegenines.com/?p=12 (March 2, 2009).

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Hill, Justin B., “Fleet Walker is first African-American to play in Major Leagues,” MLB.com, http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/history/mlb_negro_leagues_profile.jsp?player=walker_fleetwood.

“Jackie Robinson,” Baseball-References.com, http://www.baseball-reference.com/search/search.fcgi?search=jackie+robinson&results=.

“Jacob C. White, Jr. (1837-1902) Historical Marker,” ExplorePAHistory.com, http://explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php?markerId=1-A-F.

Kirsch, George, “Blacks, Baseball and the Civil War,” New York Times (September 23, 2014).

“Octavius V. Catto (Baseball) Historical Marker,” ExplorePAHistory, http://explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php?markerId=1-A-14.

“Octavius V. Catto: Forgotten Black Hero of Philadelphia,” 150 Pennsylvania Civil War, http://pacivilwar150.com/Understand/HistoricalFigures/ImportPennsylvanians/OctaviusCatto.

 

Robinson, Ray, “Jackie Robinson and a Barrier Unbroken,” New York Times (May 18, 2013).

Rossi, John, “He Was Unwelcome,” Philly.com, http://articles.philly.com/2013-04-08/news/38348704_1_jackie-robinson-phillies-baseball-world (April 8, 2013).

Silcox, Harry C., “Philadelphia Negro Educator: Jacob C. White, Jr., 1837-1902,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 97:1 (1973).