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.

It was reported that Sockalexis could throw a baseball across the Penobscot River from Indian Island to the shore of Old Town.

In the summer of 1893, members of the Holy Cross baseball team played in an amateur "county league" in Maine.

[2] In 1897, the Notre Dame baseball team played an exhibition game against the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds.

[2] At the same time, sports writers in attendance insulted a delegation of Penobscots who had come from Old Town to watch the game.

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.

Sockalexis finished his career in the minor leagues and returned to Indian Island to coach juvenile teams in 1901.

After playing in the minor leagues in 1902 (Lowell Tigers) and again in 1907 (Bangor White Sox), Sockalexis retired.

[10] Later, when sports journalists attributed his rapid decline to alcoholism, they identified the disease as the inherent "Indian weakness".

In 1963, Baseball Hall of Fame historian Lee Allen wrote a frequently cited article claiming that Jim Toy, a catcher in the early American Association, was the first.

[10] In researching his biography of Sockalexis, journalist Ed Rice found only contradictions to Allen's claims, including a death certificate listing Toy's race as white.