There are 37 Negro League players and owners in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and one of those legendary names was Andrew “Rube” Foster, known as “The Father of Black Baseball.”
Rube Foster is most recognized for organizing and launching the Negro National League (NLL) on February 13th, 1920. It is regarded as the first iteration of the Negro Leagues and, under Foster’s leadership, it grew to become the most viable Negro League organization during his tenure in baseball.
But Foster’s visionary talents, which are detailed in “The League,” the documentary about the Negro Leagues, were evident before launching the NLL.
As a player-manager for the Chicago Leland Giants, Rube led the team to a 110-win season and the city league title in 1907. Three years later, after wrestling control of the club away from owner Frank Leland, he changed the team name to the Chicago American Giants and led the team to a 123-6 record. A year later, he formed a partnership with Charles Comiskey’s son-in-law, John Schorling, and his Giants were able to play at Chicago’s South Side Park.
The Giants were so dominant and popular that they outdrew the all-white Cubs and White Sox at the stadium.
And that’s when Foster knew he had something special that deserved much more.
“The wild, reckless scramble under the guise of baseball is keeping us down and we will always be the underdog until we can successfully employ the methods that have brought success to the great powers that be in baseball of the present era: organization,” said Forster.
So in 1917, after pitching his final game and becoming a full-time manager and owner, he started to organize the way white teams did.
Three years later, Rube brought independent teams together and, over a two-day span, eventually convinced them to unite under the NNL umbrella.
The NLL consisted of Foster’s Chicago American Giants, the Indianapolis ABCs, Kansas City Monarchs, Detroit Stars, St. Louis Giants, Dayton Marcos, and the Cuban Stars, who had no home city. It became a thriving league and featured some of the greatest players in all baseball history, including his half-brother Bill Foster.
Bill was one of the most dominant lefties of his time.
In 1926, while playing for his brother’s Chicago American Giants, Bill won 26 games in a row and 26 overall. That year he accomplished a Herculean-type feat by pitching two complete game shutouts in a doubleheader against the Kansas City Monarchs. Those wins put the Giants in the World Series, which they ultimately won.
He played for five Negro League teams including the Memphis Red Sox, Homestead Grays, Giants, Monarchs and Pittsburgh Crawfords. The Alcorn grad was eventually inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame (1996), SWAC Hall of Fame (1997) and Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame (2003).
Bill was just one of the great talents to thrive under Rube Foster, a man who was all about baseball, Black players and Black America. He understood the business of baseball and, most importantly, how it could act as an economic system for Black America if organized properly.
“At his core, he was all about improving the lives of African Americans through baseball,” Doug Foster Jr., the great-nephew of Andrew Foster, told me in our exclusive interview. “At the end of the day, he was all about the Black baseball player.”
Under his leadership, the NLL captured three Negro World Championship titles against the Eastern Colored League (ECL) between 1924 – 1927. Rube’s Chicago American Giants won two championships and the Kansas City Monarchs won another. The ECL’s Hillsdale Club of Philadelphia won the other title. Unfortunately, the ECL folded in 1928, ending the Negro World Championships between the two leagues.
While everyone knows about Rube Foster’s business acumen, not many realize how good of a player he was.
Foster was one of the greatest pitchers in the sport. He began his baseball career with the Fort Worth Yellow Jackets in 1897 and dominated during his career for teams such as the Cuban X-Giants of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Giants and the Chicago Leland Giants, which he also managed. According to MLB.com, starting in 1902, Foster won 44 games in a row as a pitcher and led the X-Giants to the Black baseball championship in 1903, earning four of the five wins in the title series.
His talent and dominance caught the attention of some in the white leagues, including New York Giants manager, John McGraw. Legend has it that McGraw asked Foster to tutor a young pitcher names Christy Matthewson. Foster taught him the “fadeaway” screwball, which led Mattewson to become, as per Matt Kelly of MLB.com, “the greatest white pitcher of his generation.”
Unfortunately, Foster was hospitalized in 1926 after suffering a mental breakdown and remained institutionalized until his passing on December 9th, 1930. His death was felt by all, and thousands showed up at his funeral in Chicago to pay their respects.
After his passing, the NLL stumbled along and eventually folded in 1931. Fortunately, it was revived in 1933 and lasted until 1948, when Black players were being snatched away by MLB teams at the literal financial expense of Negro Leagues organizations and teams.
The path for Black players to success would not have been paved without the vision, hard work and dedication of Rube Foster. For his impact on the game, Foster was enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981.
But Rube Foster’s most important accomplishment was that he used baseball to create a communal and economic system for Black America that lasted for four decades.
“He [Rube] created a platform to showcase Black talent with a goal of integrating baseball,” Foster Jr. told me. “He showed the way, in a time that was much more challenging than it is now, how Black people could be owners in baseball.”
For that, Andrew “Rube” Foster should always be remembered in sports, Black and American history.
