- Jimmy Claxton
Jimmy Claxton (born
December 14 ,1892 inWellington, British Columbia ,Canada ; diedMarch 3 ,1970 in Tacoma, Washington [ [http://bioproj.sabr.org/bioproj.cfm?a=v&v=l&pid=19572&bid=2161 Biography of Claxton] ] ) was a blackbaseball pitcher .On
May 28 1916 , Claxton temporarily broke the professional baseball color line when he played one game for the Oakland Oaks of thePacific Coast League . Claxton was introduced to the team owner by a part-Indian friend as a fellow member of anOklahoma tribe. A candy company--theZeenut candy company--quickly produced a baseball card for Claxton. Within a week, a friend of Claxton revealed that he had bothAfrican American and Native Americanancestor s, and was promptly fired. It would be nearly thirty more years before another black man played organized white baseball.ource
"Baseball" by
Ken Burns ; New York: Alfred Knopf, 1994References
ee also
*
Jackie Robinson External links
* http://www.blackathlete.net/artman/publish/article_01933.shtml "Black Pitcher Threw World a Curve"
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