Who were the most racist MLB players?

Ken Griffey Jr.
https://www.thebiglead.com/posts/norm-m ... fjt1kxhkn-

It is a long list, and I wouldn't want to be a party to false accusations, but: besides the obvious, Speaker and Cy Young, Hornsby's name is often mentioned in this context.
At the same time, these are flagrant examples, and I don't know the extent to which "racist" actually has a specific meaning anymore - in other words, if one does not wish to have one's idols tainted, it would probably be best not to investigate the majority of those who have played the game between 18__ and today. As pointed out above, bigotry in some form was a societal norm. Is it still today? I leave that for others...

I was going to mention Ty Cobb, who is often pegged as a racist, but then I checked online and found a number of recent stories arguing that the allegations made against Cobb are false--mostly being the product lies peddled by his first biographer, Al Stump, in an effort to jack up sales on a bio he wrote which was published not long after Cobb's death. Stump was also the ghost-writer of Cobb's autobiography, and Cobb tried to have that book's publication stopped because he found it to be so full of errors.

In a comparatively new biography by Charles Leerhsen, Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty, he tries to set the record straight. Leerhsen explains:

People assume that Ty Cobb must have been a racist because he was raised in Georgia in the 1880s. In fact, he descended from a long line of abolitionists. As Charlie Leerhsen discovered, Ty’s great-grandfather was a minister who was run out of town for preaching against slavery. His grandfather refused to fight in the Confederate army because of slavery. His father was an educator and Georgia state senator who spoke up for his black constituents and whose political career was in part cut short for having broken up a lynch mob.”

In his book, Leerhsen writes: “For years Cobb had publicly applauded the integration of organized baseball, cheering it louder than virtually any old-time star.”

There's a detailed article about this new biography of Cobb in the Detroit Free Press: https://www.freep.com/story/sports/mlb/ ... 110323001/
Edgar Allan Poe remains the victim of slanders propagated by his first biographer, Rufus Griswold. So I'd like read this new biography of Cobb to get a clearer picture of old Tyrus Raymond.

Jake Powell was an all around terrible person. Racist and anti Semite

Interesting article on Powell

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/104 ... ked-change

As the self appointed chairman of the “kick the racists out” committee, here is my inaugural class of excluded racists:

Jake Powell
Ben Chapman
Kirby Higbe
Dixie Walker
Carl Furillo
Cap Anson
Eddie Collins
Pinky Higgins
Solly Hemus

I’m giving a break to Cobb and Speaker based on unfair press and changing of attitude respectively. And to bragan for changing his mind.
Feel free to argue for or against anyone on or not on the list.
I’ll try to do more research to name more names.

Thanks, tdkearns, for posting your list. I do have one query—regarding Bobby Bragan. Bragan did get off to a bad start when Branch Rickey broke the color line with Jackie Robinson and in the process made Jackie into Bragan's teammate on the Dodgers. However, according to every source I've consulted, Alabama-born Bragan swiftly changed his mind and became one of Jackie's strongest supporters.

As Wikipedia states it:

Bragan had clashed with Rickey in 1947 over the Dodgers' breaking of the baseball color line after the big-league debut of Jackie Robinson. Bragan—the Dodgers' second-string catcher at the time—was one of a group of white players, largely from the American South, who signed a petition against Robinson's presence. He even asked Rickey to trade him. But Bragan quickly relented. "After just one road trip, I saw the quality of Jackie the man and the player", Bragan told MLB.com in 2005. "I told Mr. Rickey I had changed my mind and I was honored to be a teammate of Jackie Robinson." When Bragan attended Rickey's funeral in 1965, he stated he decided to attend because, "Branch Rickey made me a better man."[10]

Far from dumping Bragan, as he did folks like Dixie Walker, Rickey continued to support Bragan's career by making him a minor league manager in the Dodger system. Wikipedia adds:

As a manager, Bragan earned a reputation for "color-blindedness." When he was the skipper of the Dodgers' Triple-A Spokane Indians PCL farm club in 1959, he played a pivotal role in helping Maury Wills, a speedy African-American shortstop, rise to Major League stardom. Wills' baseball career had stalled in the Dodgers' farm system until he learned to switch hit under Bragan. Said the Dodgers' then-general manager, Buzzie Bavasi, "Bobby would call six times a day and tell me over again how Wills had learned to switch-hit and how he was a great team leader, off and on the field, and how I was absolutely nuts if I didn't bring him up right away."[11]

And the rest is history.

So, in Bragan's case, at least, he seems to have learned an important lesson, and learned it quickly and permanently. Perhaps he doesn't belong on the same list with such virtulent racists as Powell, Chapman,and--perhaps worst of all-- Anson?

Nice work. I am sure that list is the tip of a very large iceberg. Jon Rocker is a more modern player that comes to mind.

Edited! Thanks for the research.

Thanks, tdkearns, for posting your list. I do have one query—regarding Bobby Bragan. Bragan did get off to a bad start when Branch Rickey broke the color line with Jackie Robinson and in the process made Jackie into Bragan's teammate on the Dodgers. However, according to every source I've consulted, Alabama-born Bragan swiftly changed his mind and became one of Jackie's strongest supporters.

As Wikipedia states it:

Bragan had clashed with Rickey in 1947 over the Dodgers' breaking of the baseball color line after the big-league debut of Jackie Robinson. Bragan—the Dodgers' second-string catcher at the time—was one of a group of white players, largely from the American South, who signed a petition against Robinson's presence. He even asked Rickey to trade him. But Bragan quickly relented. "After just one road trip, I saw the quality of Jackie the man and the player", Bragan told MLB.com in 2005. "I told Mr. Rickey I had changed my mind and I was honored to be a teammate of Jackie Robinson." When Bragan attended Rickey's funeral in 1965, he stated he decided to attend because, "Branch Rickey made me a better man."[10]

Far from dumping Bragan, as he did folks like Dixie Walker, Rickey continued to support Bragan's career by making him a minor league manager in the Dodger system. Wikipedia adds:

As a manager, Bragan earned a reputation for "color-blindedness." When he was the skipper of the Dodgers' Triple-A Spokane Indians PCL farm club in 1959, he played a pivotal role in helping Maury Wills, a speedy African-American shortstop, rise to Major League stardom. Wills' baseball career had stalled in the Dodgers' farm system until he learned to switch hit under Bragan. Said the Dodgers' then-general manager, Buzzie Bavasi, "Bobby would call six times a day and tell me over again how Wills had learned to switch-hit and how he was a great team leader, off and on the field, and how I was absolutely nuts if I didn't bring him up right away."[11]

And the rest is history.

So, in Bragan's case, at least, he seems to have learned an important lesson, and learned it quickly and permanently. Perhaps he doesn't belong on the same list with such virtulent racists as Powell, Chapman,and--perhaps worst of all-- Anson?