Monographs
 
Download

Download Full Text (941 KB)

Date

2025

Abstract

The first minor league baseball teams in Kansas represented Topeka and Leavenworth as members of the Western League in 1886 and 1887. The 1886 Topeka Base Ball Club was an integrated team, featuring Bud Fowler at second base. Although Black ballplayers were generally excluded from playing on minor league or major league clubs prior to 1946, Fowler was a fan favorite in Topeka and the team’s leading hitter. The team finished fourth among the six teams. In 1887, the Topeka Base Ball Association hired Walton Goldsby to manage the club and improve on the previous record. Goldsby assembled a team on which all of the members except one had played or would play for major league clubs. The team became known as Goldsby’s Golden Giants. They easily won the Western League pennant and are arguably one of the best minor league teams of the nineteenth century. The stories of these two clubs are summarized. This essay was originally published in 2020 and has undergone revisions and corrections for its release in 2025 as part of the five-volume anthology Peeking through the Knothole. The open-access, digital version of this essay is available through the “Download” button on this webpage. The print-on-demand version is available through the “Buy this Book” button for volume five of the anthology (Essays on Baseball from Various Viewpoints, 1856–1940).

Keywords

Bud Fowler, integrated baseball, minor league baseball, Western League, Topeka baseball, Goldsby’s Golden Giants, Topeka Golden Giants

Rights

© The Author (s)

Comments

For questions contact ScholarsRepository@fhsu.edu

Originally Published 2020

Revised Edition 2025

Topeka Enters the Minor Leagues, 1886–1887: Bud Fowler and Goldsby’s Golden Giants, Revised

Included in

History Commons

Share

Book Location

 
COinS