Frank Grant

CTL-E-6949 · Person · other · 1865–1937

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07821 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-6949.

Ulysses Franklin 'Frank' Grant (August 1, 1865, Pittsfield, Massachusetts – May 27, 1937) was a second baseman widely regarded as the finest Black player of the nineteenth century. The National Baseball Hall of Fame records that contemporaries called him 'The Black Dunlap,' a reference to Fred Dunlap, one of the best-fielding white second basemen of the decade. After leading Meriden of the Eastern League in hitting in 1886, he joined Buffalo of the International League and led the Bisons in batting for three straight seasons — .344 in 1886, .353 with a league-leading 11 home runs in 1887, and .346 in 1888 — making him, per SABR, the only Black player before the 1940s to play three consecutive seasons with one club in Organized Baseball. On July 14, 1887, while Grant was in the league, International League owners voted to approve no more contracts with Black players. Barred as the color line hardened, Grant moved in 1889 to the Cuban Giants and played for leading Black clubs into the early 1900s. He was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006.

The record

• Also known as: Ulysses Franklin Grant, The Black Dunlap

Notes

Sports Encyclopedia roster CTL-SPE-0248. Firsts disposition: ASSERTED AS SOURCED — 'only Black player before the 1940s to play three consecutive seasons with one club in Organized Baseball' (SABR). The nickname 'the Black Dunlap' is presented as an attributed contemporary nickname (Hall of Fame; SABR; NLBM), not as a CTL coinage. 1887 episode stated exactly as SABR sources it: the July 14, 1887 International League vote approving no more contracts with Black players, with Grant among those allowed to play out the season; no individual refusal episode is asserted for Grant personally. Curator's Judgment (DRAFT): Grant's three Buffalo seasons, each as the club's leading hitter, are the statistical core of the integration era — the color line was drawn against demonstrated, documented excellence, and his 1887 season is the proof. Photo: CLEARED (CORRECTED after a fuller Commons search) — 1887 Buffalo Bisons.jpg, Public domain; the Commons file description identifies Grant sitting second from right in the front row, corroborated by the Greater Hartford Twilight Baseball League's published caption to the same photograph. Two solo-portrait Commons files ('Frank Grant 1887.jpg', 'Frank Grant 1902.jpg') also name Grant and are Public domain, but their Commons credit lines trace to Etsy/eBay listings, so the corroborated team photograph was cleared instead under the misattribution caution for 19th-century baseball imagery.

Sources

• Brian McKenna. "Frank Grant." SABR BioProject, Society for American Baseball Research. Accessed 2026-11-03. (primary source · build store)
• National Baseball Hall of Fame. "Grant, Frank" (Cuban Giants feature). Accessed 2026-11-03. (primary source · build store)
• James A. Riley. "Frank Grant." Negro Leagues Baseball eMuseum, Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. Accessed 2026-11-03. (primary source · build store)
• Minor League Baseball. "Black Baseball Pioneers: Frank Grant, the best of the 1800s." MiLB.com, February 8, 2023. Accessed 2026-11-03. (primary source · build store)
• Greater Hartford Twilight Baseball League. "Frank Grant: Hall of Fame Trailblazer who Began his Career in Meriden." Accessed 2026-11-03. (build store)

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Record CTL-E-6949 · Combined Graph record U-07821 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 5 sources.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

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