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Louis Francis Sockalexis (October 24, 1871 – December 24, 1913), nicknamed The Deerfoot of the Diamond, was an American baseball player. Sockalexis played professional baseball in the National League for three seasons, spending his entire career (1897-1899) as an outfielder for the Cleveland Spiders. A Native American from the Penobscot tribe, Sockalexis is often identified as the first person of Native American ancestry to play in Major League Baseball, though many conflicting reports exist. In some cases, Jim Toy, a catcher in the early American Association, is identified as the first person with Native American ancestry to play major league baseball.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 work=baseballreliquary.com )〕 Author Ed Rice has disputed this, having found a death certificate for Toy stating his race as Caucasian, although birth records of the time are notoriously inaccurate. Also, Chief Yellow Horse, who played in the early 1920s, is noted as the first full-blooded American Indian to have played in the major leagues.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 url=http://www.lelands.com/bid.aspx?lot=682&auctionid=704 )〕 == Early life == Louis Sockalexis was born on the Penobscot Indian reservation near Old Town, Maine in 1871. His grandfather was Chief of the Bear Clan.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 work=maine.com )〕 In his youth, Sockalexis' athletic talents were very noticeable. It was reported that Sockalexis could throw a baseball across the Penobscot River from Indian Island to the shore of Old Town.〔 Additionally, it is said that Sockalexis and his father entertained crowds at the Bangor Race Track by playing catch across the entire track.〔 He attended High School in Van Buren's St. Mary's. After completing his secondary education, Sockalexis began his college career in 1894 at the College of the Holy Cross.〔 While there, he participated on the school's baseball, football, and track teams.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 work=deadspin.com )〕 Sockalexis spent those summers playing baseball in the Trolley League along the coast of Maine.〔 After the end of the 1895-96 baseball season, the Holy Cross baseball coach accepted a position at the University of Notre Dame in February 1897. When that happened, Sockalexis decided to transfer to Notre Dame. In his two season at Holy Cross, Sockalexis compiled a .444 batting average.〔 Sockalexis biographer Ed Rice challenges this entire Notre Dame-Giants account, since there is (1) no known newspaper account of it and (2) it sounds too remarkably like the account that actually occurred when the Cleveland team played the Giants for the first time in the Polo Grounds. In 1897, the Notre Dame baseball team played an exhibition game against the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds.〔 In a sign of things to come, Sockalexis had to deal with taunts, racism, and insulting chants during the game.〔 At the same time, sports writers in attendance insulted a delegation of Pensobscots who had come from Old Town to watch the game.〔 Amos Rusie, a future member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, pitched that day for the Giants; and, before the game, Rusie had promised to strike out Sockalexis.〔 Things did not go well for Rusie as Sockalexis hit a home run following Rusie's first pitch.〔 Here, Rice completely challenges the Notre Dame account: Why would Rusie promise to strike out the "damned Indian" as he characterized Sockalexis before he and the Cleveland team arrived in New York? When this incident occurred in the professional game, Rice and Society for American Baseball Research member Richard "Dixie" Tourangeau discovered Rusie had a reason to be upset with Sockalexis. It seems earlier in the 1897 season, New York had played a series in Cleveland; in the game Rusie pitched there, the game went into extra innings and Sockalexis got the game-winning hit off Rusie. This Notre Dame account hasn't been proven. However, Sockalexis' career at Notre Dame was short. In an event that foreshadowed future problems, the University expelled Sockalexis not long after he arrived for his problems with alcohol.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 work=baseballlibrary.com )〕 Although he played exclusively as an outfielder in the majors, Sockalexis played outfield and pitcher while at Notre Dame and Holy Cross.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Louis Sockalexis」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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