Fleet Walker's Divided Heart - by David W Zang (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Moses Fleetwood Walker was the first black American to play baseball in a major league. He achieved college baseball stardom at Oberlin College in the 1880s. Teammates as well as opponents harassed him; Cap Anson, the Chicago White Stockings star, is blamed for driving Walker and the few other blacks in the major leagues out of the game, but he could not have done so alone. A gifted athlete, inventor, civil rights activist, author, and entrepreneur, Walker lived precariously along America's racial fault lines. He died in 1924, thwarted in ambition and talent and frustrated by both the American dream and the national pastime.

From the Back Cover

Moses Fleetwood Walker was the first black American to play baseball in a major league. But Walker is more than a footnote: his life demonstrates both the devastation of racism and the role of baseball as a symbol of the nation. Walker achieved college baseball stardom while he was a student at Oberlin College in the 1880s. As Walker's athletic ability earned success on the playing field, racial attitudes were hardening and segregation was becoming the pattern of American society, both on the field and off. Teammates as well as opponents harassed him; Cap Anson, the Chicago White Stockings star, is credited with driving Walker and the few other blacks in the major leagues out of the game but could not have done so alone. Walker's life was defined as much by the fact that he was part white as it was by his black heritage. His attempts to reconcile his Anglo and African aspects left him in glorious disarray. Although acquitted of a murder on the grounds of self-defense, he eventually served time in prison on a federal mail robbery conviction. A gifted athlete, an inventor, a civil rights activist, an author, and an entrepreneur, Walker lived precariously along the fault lines of America's racial dilemma. He died in 1924 after a life of thwarted ambition and talent, frustrated by both the American dream and the national pastime.

Review Quotes

""Fleet Walker's Divided Heart" isn't as much about the first black player in major-league baseball history as it is the account of a complicated man who happened to have played baseball and who tried to find his place in a complicated world. The book provides a good snapshot of life in post-Civil War America, a time when the American psyche began to encompass the idea of the newly-emancipated slave as an equal."-John Brattain, "HaroldSeymour.com"

"A dramatic portrait that reflects the nation's turn-of-the-century racial milieu."-"Library Journal"

"A mesmerizing tale, reminding us-if we need to be reminded-of the blasted hopes and lives that have been and are being produced by the inequitable and indefensible way some Americans treat people who are raciallydifferent."-"Nation"

"Zang has done truly excellent work to rescue his subject from a shadowy past and to illuminate him as an 'imperishable human presence' trapped in a heartbreaking era."-"Sporting News"

"Zang reconstructs his story convincingly. . . . a first (and undoubtedly definitive) biography of an all-but-forgotten figure in the history of American sports and race matters."-"Washington Post"

"Zang's book is about more than baseball. He effectively places Walker's multifaceted life in the context of the racial climate of the late nineteenth century."-"Journal of American History"

About the Author

David W. Zang has taught sports studies and American studies at the University of Maryland, The Pennsylvania State University, and Towson University.