During the late nineteenth century major league baseball became racially segregated. In 1867 the Rational Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP), which governed amateur baseball, barred African Americans, maintaining that only whites could uphold baseball's "gentlemanly character." Owners of professional teams in pursuit of winning records, however, signed contracts with skilled African American players. While the first African American professional baseball player was John "Bud"Fowler in New Castle, Pennsylvania, in 1872, the first to play in the major league was Moses Fleetwood Walker, who joined Toledo of the International League in 1884. Unfortunately he and his brother Welday only played one season. Racial tensions hit baseball in 1887, when a white player for Syracuse (International League) refused to stand in the team picture with an African American teammate. Afterward International League owners decided to discontinue signing African Americans, but permitted existing players to remain on the teams...