agate type

the tokohama conspiracy

     

                    Dave Wyatt                                          Charlie Grant

If true, the following story answers some questions I raised at the end of this post about the Tokohama affair.  In a 1910 article in The Freeman, the longtime Chicago sportswriter (and former teammate of Rube Foster and others) Dave Wyatt wrote that he and Charlie Grant concocted the plan to get Grant into the major leagues.  Here are his own words, from his column “Notes of the Managers and Players” (Indianapolis Freeman, February 19, 1910).  Unfortunately, my copy is unreadable after scanning; if I can get over to Chapel Hill soon I will try to get something better.

NOTES OF THE MANAGERS AND PLAYERS.
By DAVID WYATT.

[…]

[Charley] Grant was one of our greatest baseball players.  Some years ago he accompanied the writer to Hot Springs, where we hatched a plan to better the condition of colored players.  I placed the same before McGraw, whom I knew personally.  After considering things, McGraw said that he could probably get Grant into the League as an Indian.  I told Grant of the decision, but it did not appeal to him as right.  After seeing Grant perform “Mac” became all enthused, and insisted upon us hunting up some long Indian name to be used.  We manufactured one—Grant-a-muscogee.  This made a hit with McGraw, but in the meantime some newspaper man had got “hep” to us and sent the news broadcast that the Indian find’s name was Tokohoma.  The idea that McGraw did not know Grant was a colored man is all bosh; the writer arranged the whole plan, and McGraw stuck to his word all the way through until the colored players and patrons of the game worked up so much sentiment that Ban Johnson took a hand.  McGraw was one of the most loyal men I ever saw.  McGraw told Johnson that it was a shame for a man to be barred from baseball on account of color, and he actually wept when he could go no further with Grant.  In justice to Grant, I will say that at no time did he want to pass as anything but a colored player.  There were a half dozen players on the Baltimore club then who knew Grant personally; two of them were Mike Donlin and Roger Bresnahan.  George Rohe was raised up with him in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Jimmie Burke knew him well.  All these agreed to play dumb, and they carried out the part.  It was left to players with whom he had associated for years to have him turned down.

Lucius C. Harper remembered this story in 1942 for his column “Dustin’ Off the News” (Chicago Defender, August 8, 1942, p. 1), adding a number of key details:

I haven’t been able to substantiate the supposed incident at White Stocking Park in Chicago.  The first time Baltimore and Chicago met in 1901 was in Chicago in late May, well after Tokohama’s identity as Grant had been exposed.  There’s no indication in the Tribune that Grant was present at the games (though he was in Chicago at the time, according to the Washington Post), nor was there any mention of the Tokohama affair.  If something like Tom Evans’s on-field confrontation with Grant took place, maybe it was at a spring training or exhibition game, whether in Hot Springs or elsewhere.

Pete Burns had indeed been Grant’s teammate on the Columbia Giants just the previous year (1900).

Images above are from Sol White’s Official Base Ball Guide (1907). 

UPDATE 4/23/2009 Here’s the Washington Post from May 28, 1901: “Tokohoma, McGraw’s alleged Indian, is in Chicago, but will not accompany the team.  Why not?”  On second thought, maybe something did happen in Chicago, though Grant had in reality been exposed about two months earlier.  Keep in mind that McGraw, locked in a struggle with Ban Johnson, was apparently quite persistent about Grant.

pete hill passing in the majors?

Here’s an example of how the Tokohama affair was remembered in the black baseball community (Indianapolis Freeman, August 27, 1910):
. 

I’ve seen stories like this involving other players, but not about Hill.  Although he seems a highly unlikely candidate for passing in the major leagues, he had been spending winters in Cuba since 1903, which might explain such a rumor attaching itself to him.

tokohama context: mcgraw vs. american league

In my post on Paul Wendt’s Charlie Grant research, I didn’t give enough attention to Paul’s main point, which is that the Tokohama affair ultimately became a footnote to the struggle between the American and National leagues (or at least John McGraw’s part in this struggle).  You should check out this thread at Baseball Fever for more a more nuanced discussion of the whole matter.  Here, again courtesy of Paul, is the actual context in the Chicago Tribune of the story about McGraw deciding he “wants his Indian” after all (May 19, 1901):

I don’t have much to add at the moment, other than to observe that there remain many mysteries concerning McGraw’s signing of Grant in the first place, including Clark Griffith’s role, whether all parties involved were aware of Grant’s true identity (at least as a player on the Columbia Giants), and exactly what role Ban Johnson played.  Did Johnson perceive the potential signing of a black player as a threat to the American League’s program of “clean baseball”?   How important to McGraw was the thwarting of his intention to sign Grant—was it merely a “footnote” to other problems with umpires, league authority, etc., or did his dissatisfaction start with the Tokohama affair? 

new light on the tokohama affair

Paul Wendt has unearthed much new material on the Tokohama affair.  The earliest item Paul has found so far is from the Baltimore Sun, March 11, 1901, and it identifies Charlie Grant as…“the Cherokee Indian player Grant”:

Paul notes that the wording seems to imply that readers were already familiar with Grant, though he couldn’t find an earlier reference (it could have been in a different edition of the paper that hasn’t been preserved). 

Then on March 16 the Sun published the following:

This is a version of the piece the Chicago Tribune would publish on March 24; both are likely versions of some longer original.  The Tokohama name and cover story would seem to have been concocted between March 11 and March 16; apparently the Sun’s editors, along with McGraw or somebody else on the Orioles, forgot that Grant’s name had already been printed (or hoped readers would forget). 

On March 30 the Sun would publish this about McGraw’s reaction to the rumors of Tokohama’s real identity:

Interestingly, McGraw tried to exploit the confusion between Charlie Grant and Frank Grant; by proving that Charlie was not the well-known Frank Grant, he hoped also to prove he wasn’t black.  As for Frank being “rather short” and “stout,” while Charlie was “tall and raw-boned”: for whatever it’s worth, in the March 16 Sun piece Charlie Grant is said to be 5’8”, 175, while Frank Grant was, according to Riley, 5’7 1/2”, 155.

(Frank Grant, by the way, was at this time still in Cuba with the Cuban X Giants, and would remain there at least through April 9.)  (Grant was in Cuba in 1900, not 1901.)

As late as April 11, the Baltimore Sun was running items that seemed to indicate that Grant was expected to join the team in Baltimore any day now, although the Chicago Tribune (April 7) had Grant already with the Columbia Giants.

The Milwaukee Daily News (March 29, 1901) printed this brief item:

“Tokohama, the Indian ball player signed for the Baltimore American league team, is Charley Grant, second baseman of the Columbia Giants, probably the best team of colored players in the country.” 

Paul points out that there is no direct suggestion here that Grant is black; you could read it as saying that Grant/Tokohama was an Indian player with a “colored” team.

Then, from the April 1 Milwaukee Daily News, what purports to be an explicit denial of Grant’s blackness by Grant himself:

And from the April 9 Milwaukee Daily News:

“Tokahome [sic], the Cherokee Indian, will play with the Columbian Giants again this year.  When it became known that McGraw’s find was not a full-blooded Indian he was informed that he was not wanted.  He will act as manager of the Giants this season.”

Again, in Paul’s words, “no suggestion [Grant] is not Indian”; it’s his lack of “full-blooded” status that is supposed to explain his release.  Significantly, despite the passive construction, the release is attributed to McGraw alone, not to any league action or pressure.  But, as I noted in this post, as late as mid-May McGraw was apparently still trying to get Grant for the Orioles.  Paul also pointed out that all this was going on at the same time as McGraw’s battle with Ban Johnson, and Johnson’s suspension of McGraw for “rowdyism” and umpire-baiting.  In fact the May 19 Tribune item, “McGraw Wants His Indian,” actually appeared just below an article about McGraw’s troubles with the league.  It seems quite likely the Tokohama affair was not unrelated to the larger context of the American League vs. McGraw.

Thanks to Paul Wendt for all this great material!

UPDATE 9/16/2009 Edited to correct mistake about Frank Grant’s whereabouts in 1901.

frank grant: the novel

If you haven’t, you should check out this essay by John Thorn on Frank Grant, probably the best African-American player of the nineteenth century.  See especially how Grant served as the model for a character in an 1895 novel by a childhood acquaintance, a novel that, strangely, predicted the 1901 “Chief Tokohama” incident involving not Frank, but Charlie Grant.

more on “chief tokohama”

Here is a Chicago Tribune story about the signing of Charlie “Tokohama” Grant (March 24, 1901):

Some points:

1) The story as Riley gives it is that Charlie Comiskey, “alerted by the response of black fans,” blew the whistle on Grant’s racial identity.  Interestingly, Clark Griffith, player-manager of the White Sox, is depicted here as deeply involved in the situation from the beginning.

2) I don’t buy the completely casual nature of McGraw’s encounter with Grant. This is just a guess, but I suspect McGraw was quite aware of who Grant was, and may have purposefully sought him out as a player who might be capable of passing.

3) “Tokohama” seems to be the most common spelling, though “Tokahoma” (which is how Riley renders it) and “Tokohoma” were also used.  The last seems to have been the original version of the name as reported in the Cincinnati Enquirer (according to one source, anyway); supposedly, McGraw took the name from a creek he saw on a map in the Hot Springs, Arkansas, hotel where the Orioles were staying for spring training.  I haven’t yet found any body of water in Arkansas with a similar name. (I did find a Tokahoma Avenue in Greeneville, Tennessee, which would be in old Cherokee country…)  “Tokahoma” does resemble “Oklahoma,” originally a Choctaw, not Cherokee, word (the two languages are not related).

4) Some crucial context for the Charlie Grant signing: McGraw was managing the Baltimore Orioles, a brand-new franchise in the newly-major American League.  With the number of major league teams doubled from 1900, teams were scrambling for talent.  The Washington Post, for example, wrote of the Boston Nationals:  “The cream of the team has been snatched away, and the prospect of securing men to take their places is not at all brilliant.  The triumvirate are prepared to spend big money to get men, but the men cannot be had” (March 16, 1901).  When you think about it, it makes sense that the color line would be tested at this time, however tentatively.

On March 29, the Boston Globe reported that “Toke” would accompany Jimmy Sheckard and Joe McGinnity from Arkansas to New Orleans, where the three would embark for Baltimore in time for opening day.

Two days later, on March 31, the Washington Post reported in its “Baseball Notes” column that “there is a report in circulation that Manager McGraw’s Indian player is not a Cherokee at all, but is the old-time colored player, Grant” (confusing him with Frank Grant).  The same column noted that Grant, who had been listed among the outfielders, was now to be tried out again at second base.  Somebody, however, was not letting go of the story.  On April 2, the Post reiterated its “outing” of Grant: “It is being persistently stated that ‘Tokohama,” McGraw’s Cherokee Indian, is Grant, the old negro player.”

Then on April 4, the Post printed this:

By April 7, it seems, McGraw had given up, and Grant had returned to the Columbia Giants (Chicago Tribune, April 7, 1901):

Yet more than a month later (May 19), this report appeared in the Chicago Tribune (the Washington Post published the same story):

I haven’t discovered yet whether Grant did report, but on May 28, the Post’s “Baseball Notes” hadn’t forgotten about it:

So it seems that McGraw, well after Grant’s identity was known, kept trying to get him on the Orioles, his spin possibly being that Grant was not actually African-American, but rather an Indian playing for a “colored” team.  It would be fascinating to get more of an insider’s account of McGraw’s maneuverings here.  I wonder if the failure to sign Grant might have contributed to McGraw’s eventual disillusionment with the American League (he left the Orioles in mid-season 1902)?  Not that he could have signed a black player in the National League, of course, but a dispute with Comiskey, one of the pillars of the new league, wouldn’t have gotten McGraw off to a good start with Ban Johnson’s organization.

From here the trail grows cold, at least for now; but I’ll be checking the Baltimore Sun in the near future to see how the story was reported from that angle.

charlie grant

Here is a brief item with some interesting information about Charlie Grant, a.k.a. “Chief Tokahoma,” the man John McGraw tried to sneak into the majors as an ersatz Indian.  From the Baltimore Afro-American, July 15, 1916:

I have also seen “Tokahoma” (from Riley) rendered as “Tokohama.”  I tried to check this quickly on ProQuest, but they have apparently decided to end the SABR subscription several hours early. (It’s not supposed to end until midnight tonight, at least according to a SABR announcement that said that beginning on January 1, we would no longer have access.)