Integrated Baseball in Ohio, 1883–1900: Sol White and Richard Male, Revised

Authors

Mark E. Eberle, Fort Hays State UniversityFollow

Files

DOI

10.58809/CMUA5153

Date

4-24-2025

Abstract

Two essays amend and expand what has been published about two Ohio natives who played baseball in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as the sport became increasingly segregated. The first essay clarifies the early years of Sol White, a Black ballplayer from Bellaire, Ohio, who played on integrated amateur teams in his hometown beginning in 1883, as well as the integrated first nine in Wheeling, West Virginia in 1886–1887 and the segregated Pittsburgh Keystones in 1887–1888. About this same time, Richard Male, who was born in Columbus but was a longtime resident of Cleveland, played under the pseudonym Richard Johnson for white town teams in Ohio before joining low-level minor league clubs in Zanesville, Ohio and in Illinois. However, he was not signed by a high-level minor league or major league clubs after stories spread that he was Black. As with his contemporary, Charles “Bumpus” Jones of Cedarville, Ohio, another ballplayer with light skin, the question of whether Male was Black or white was answered differently in his hometown than in the world of organized baseball. This essay was originally published in 2024 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 three of the anthology (Essays on Crossing Baseball’s Color Line, 1874–1946).

Keywords

Solomon White, Sol White, Richard Johnson, Dick Johnson, Richard Male, Dick Male, baseball history, integrated baseball, segregated baseball, color line, Ohio baseball, Bellaire baseball, Peoria baseball, Springfield baseball, Wheeling baseball, Zanesville baseball.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Rights

© The Author(s)

Comments

For questions contact ScholarsRepository@fhsu.edu

Originally Published 2024

Revised Edition 2025

Recommended Citation

Eberle, Mark E., "Integrated Baseball in Ohio, 1883–1900: Sol White and Richard Male, Revised" (2025). Monographs. 40.
DOI: 10.58809/CMUA5153
Available at: https://scholars.fhsu.edu/all_monographs/40