One of the most interesting footnotes in baseball history is Jimmy Claxton. Claxton pitched briefly for the Oakland Oaks of the Pacific Coast League in 1916. What is significant about Claxton is not his playing career, but his race; he was the first player of African-American ancestry to play for a predominately white professional team in the 20th Century. Claxton may have been as little as one-sixth African-American and was able to pass himself off as a Native American (which also may have been in his background).
Sources disagree on how much Claxton actually pitched. According to the Baseball-Reference.com's minor league encyclopedia (which spells his last name "Klaxton"), he got into two games, starting one, and pitching a total of 2.1 innings with no decisions and a 7.71 ERA. According to James A. Riley's "Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues" Claxton pitched in five games, starting three and finishing with a record of 0-1. Both sources agree that he was released after about a month with the team, probably because team brass learned of his true racial identity. According to Riley, Claxton subsequently pitched for African-American teams for many years.
Another first for Claxton: at the time he played for Oakland, a company named Zeanuts produced baseball cards of PCL players. Despite Claxton's brief time with the Oaks, he was included on one of the company's cards, becoming the first black player ever to be featured on a baseball card.
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