Edit Other First: First Known Integrated (Adult) Club Takes the Field

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Description:	<p><span>Luther B. Askin of Florence, MA (a hamlet of fewer than 1500 souls lying about 2 miles W of Northampton and about 90 miles W of Boston) is thought to be the first adult of African lineage to play on an integrated team in a standard match game.&nbsp; The first baseman&nbsp;is listed in box-scores of the first 13 matches played by the Florence Eagles Club in 1865.</span></p> <p>Florence is recalled as one of the centers of Anti-Slavery activism in those times. The next earliest known instance of integration occurred in 1869 in Oberlin, OH, also a center of Anti-Slavery activism (see Ryczek,&nbsp;<em><span>When Johnny Came Sliding Home,</span></em>&nbsp;1998, page 102).&nbsp;&nbsp;Further instances of early integration might be found in communities that held similar views.</p> <p>Brian notes in&nbsp;2014 that juvenile clubs were apparently less unlikely to&nbsp;engage in integrated play, even prior to the Civil War. The son of Frederick Douglass, for instance, is known to have played on a white junior club in Rochester NY in 1859.&nbsp; Luther Askin also played on such juvenile teams prior to the Civil War.</p> <p><span>&nbsp;</span></p>
Sources:	<p>Brian Turner, "America's Earliest Integrated Team?" National Pastime,Number 22 (2002), pages 81-90.</p> <p>Brian Turner (email to Protoball, 2/1/2014), has supplementary data&nbsp;on early integrated play, and&nbsp;he reports that the 1865 game&nbsp;evidently remains the earliest known case of integrated adult play in a standard game. &nbsp;</p>
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