My opinion is that he was amazing. has African American players made history such as: Reggie Jackson, Hank Aaron, lou brock etc.
Of the major sports, baseball is the oldest as long as we are talking about games that closely resemble what we know today. American football in the mid to late 1800's was still more rugby than what we know today as football. But it is really too close to think of one as being older than the other. Baseball was becoming popular around the same time that modern football rules were being put into place.
Baseball and football both became very big in the late 1800s / early 1900s. However, football differed greatly from what we know today. Gameplans were very different, it was basically "4 yards and a cloud of dust" with running the ball 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, with very little passing. A more modern style of playing didn't really start until the AFL started competing with the NFL.