On April 22, 1897 Louis Sockalexis became the first American Indian to become a Major League ballplayer with the National League Cleveland Spiders.
Six years later Chief Bender became the first American Indian in the American League and one of two (Zack Wheat is the other) American Indians enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame to date.
The set of research immediately below is a comprehensive list of former Major League Baseball players who were also verifiable full-blooded American Indians.
NOTE: MLB players with a fraction of Native American blood are also included, at the bottom of this research, in the Fast Facts section. Research by Baseball Almanac.
"The reason I went into baseball as a profession was that when I left school, baseball offered me the best opportunity both for money and achievement. I adopted it because I played baseball better than I could do anything else, because the life and the game appealed to me and because there was so little of racial prejudice in the game. There has been scarcely a trace of sentiment against me on account of birth. I have been treated the same as other men." - Chief Bender in the Ottawa Citizen (Charles Albert, It's Man To Man In Baseball Says Chief Bender Of Athletics, 09/22/1911, Page 8)
American Indian Major League Baseball Playersby Baseball Almanac |
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# | Players | Tribe(s) | First Game | Final Game |
1. | Louis Sockalexis | Penobscot | 04-22-1897 | 05-13-1899 |
2. | Bill Phyle | Lakota | 09-17-1898 | 09-15-1906 |
3. | Chief Bender | Ojibwe | 04-20-1903 | 07-21-1925 |
4. | Ed Pinnance | Ojibwe | 09-14-1903 | 09-29-1903 |
5. | Lou Bruce | Mohawk | 06-22-1904 | 10-10-1904 |
6. | Louis LeRoy | Seneca | 09-22-1905 | 04-20-1910 |
7. | Frank Jude | Ojibwe | 07-09-1906 | 10-07-1906 |
8. | Ed Summers | Kickapoo | 04-16-1908 | 06-01-1912 |
9. | Chief Meyers | Cahuilla | 04-15-1909 | 10-04-1917 |
10. | Chief Chouneau | Ojibwe | 10-09-1910 | 10-09-1910 |
11. | Paddy Mayes | Creek | 06-11-1911 | 06-18-1911 |
12. | Mike Balenti | Cheyenne | 07-19-1911 | 09-22-1913 |
13. | Frank Harter | Cherokee | 08-31-1912 | 06-09-1914 |
14. | Jim Thorpe | Fox & Sac | 04-14-1913 | 09-25-1919 |
15. | Chief Johnson | Winnebago | 04-16-1913 | 09-30-1915 |
16. | Ben Tincup | Cherokee | 05-22-1914 | 09-15-1928 |
17. | Jim Bluejacket | Cherokee | 08-06-1914 | 07-16-1916 |
18. | Mack Wheat | Cherokee | 04-14-1915 | 06-06-1921 |
19. | William Marriott | Cherokee | 09-06-1917 | 04-28-1927 |
20. | Virgil Cheeves | Cherokee | 09-07-1920 | 05-13-1927 |
21. | Jesse Petty | Cherokee | 04-14-1921 | 09-28-1930 |
22. | Chief Yellow Horse | Pawnee | 04-15-1921 | 10-01-1922 |
23. | Chief Youngblood | Choctaw | 07-16-1922 | 07-31-1922 |
24. | Ike Kahdot | Potowatomie | 09-05-1922 | 09-21-1922 |
25. | Homer Blankenship | Cherokee | 09-06-1922 | 09-27-1928 |
26. | Emmett Bowles | Potowatomie | 09-12-1922 | 09-12-1922 |
27. | Pryor McBee | Choctaw | 05-22-1926 | 05-22-1926 |
28. | Pepper Martin | Osage | 04-16-1928 | 10-01-1944 |
29. | Art Daney | Choctaw | 05-25-1928 | 05-25-1928 |
30. | Roy Johnson | Cherokee | 04-18-1929 | 04-27-1938 |
31. | Chief Hogsett | Cherokee | 09-18-1929 | 06-03-1944 |
32. | Bob Johnson | Cherokee | 04-12-1933 | 09-23-1945 |
33. | Euel Moore | Chickasaw | 07-08-1934 | 07-26-1936 |
34. | Rudy York | Cherokee | 08-22-1934 | 09-20-1948 |
35. | Vallie Eaves | Cherokee | 09-12-1935 | 04-26-1942 |
36. | Bob Neighbors | Cherokee | 09-16-1939 | 09-30-1939 |
37. | Allie Reynolds | Muscogee | 09-17-1942 | 09-25-1954 |
38. | Cal McLish | Choctaw | 05-13-1944 | 07-14-1964 |
39. | Charlie Cozart | Cherokee | 04-17-1945 | 06-14-1945 |
40. | Jess Pike | Creek | 04-18-1946 | 05-18-1946 |
41. | Pat Cooper | Choctaw | 05-11-1946 | 09-06-1947 |
42. | Jim Gladd | Cherokee | 09-09-1946 | 09-29-1946 |
43. | Jack Aker | Potowatomie | 05-03-1964 | 09-27-1974 |
44. | Gene Locklear | Lumbee | 04-05-1973 | 10-02-1977 |
45. | Dwight Lowry | Lumbee | 04-03-1984 | 04-23-1988 |
46. | Kyle Lohse | Nomlaki Wintun | 06-22-2001 | 07-19-2016 |
47. | Bobby Madritsch | Lakota | 07-22-2004 | 04-06-2005 |
48. | Jacoby Ellsbury | Navajo | 06-30-2007 | 10-17-2017 |
49. | Joba Chamberlain | Winnebago | 08-07-2007 | 07-01-2016 |
50. | Dallas Beeler | Chickasaw | 06-28-2014 | 07-28-2015 |
51. | Ryan Helsley | Cherokee | 04-16-2019 | Active |
52. | Brandon Bailey | Chickasaw | 07-26-2020 | Active |
# | Players | Tribe(s) | First Game | Final Game |
American Indian MLB Players | Research by Baseball Almanac | ||||
Sources : Dictionary of North American Indians (Internet) : 60 Feet Six Inches by Todd Fuller (2002) : The Cultural Encyclopedia of Baseball (1999) : The Library of Congress (Internet) : James Locklear (Locklear / Lowry Publicist) : Richard Green (Tribal Historian Chickasaw Nation) : Rod Nelson (SABR Scouts Historian) : New York Times (Confirmation of recent [2004-07] names) : REP1 Baseball (Brandon Bailey) |
There are fourteen former ballplayers who were either commonly called "chief" or simply nicknamed "chief" and in the Encyclopedia of North American Indians they wrote, "It is worth pointing out that while American Indian ballplayers were nearly always called 'Chief,' this nickname was used much less often among Indians themselves. John 'Chief' Meyers, for example, a Mission Indian who played against Bender, referred to him as Charlie."
Did you know that the words King Gustav V of Sweden spoke in the 1912 Olympics — "You sir, are the greatest athlete in the world." — are inscribed on Jim Thorpe's rose granite sarcophagus?
1903 Fort Spokane Baseball Team |
1908 Skitwish Boys Baseball Team |
1912 Tulalip Indian School Baseball Team |
Tribes have a LONG tradition of playing baseball, both on an off the reservation (as illustrated by some of the classic pre-1913 photos seen above). Other players have had a fraction of Native American blood including, but not limited to: Lane Adams, Gene Bearden, Johnny Bench, Howie Fox, Nippy Jones, Ernie Koy, Roy Meeker, Willie Stargell, Joseph Tipton, Jim Toy (possibly the first part-Indian player to make it to the Major Leagues), Thurman Tucker, Virgil Trucks, Zack Wheat, and Early Wynn.