Foster, Rube

Rube Foster

1879-1930

American baseball player

Andrew "Rube" Foster, founder and first president of the Negro National League, is known as the Father of Black Baseball. An outstanding pitcher who began his own career as a player at age 17, Foster supported black teams throughout his life and worked for the legitimization, respect, and financial success of African-American baseball. A creative and intelligent businessman, Foster also helped to form the Chicago American Giants, a powerhouse team that some say would have rivaled the New York Yankees had they been allowed to play in the same league. Foster began his career as a team manager with the Leland Giants in 1907, urging them to a 110-10 record. His Chicago American Giants took home the Negro National League's first three pennants, in 1920, 1921, and 1922. Although his career came to an end in 1926 after he suffered a mental breakdown, Foster had firmly established the Negro leagues as an important institution in American baseball. Even though the leagues began to decline after 1945, when Jackie Robinson became the first African American to play in the major leagues, they had brought well-deserved recognition to African-American athletes in the United States. Foster was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981 for his contribution to the sport.

Boyhood and Early Barnstorming Career

Andrew Foster was born September 17, 1879, in Calvert, Texas, the son of Andrew Foster, Sr., presiding elder at the Calvert Methodist Episcopal Church, and Sarah Foster. He suffered from asthma as a boy but became as enthusiastic about baseball as he was about attending church. He was soon organizing a neighborhood team, and his interest grew as he did. After his mother died, his father remarried and moved to southwest Texas. Andrew completed the eighth grade and left home to pursue his love of baseball. At age 17 he joined the traveling Fort Worth, Texas, Yellow Jackets and began a barnstorming career that was typical of African-American teams of his time. Ironically, the traveling ball players were looked down on by fellow blacks, who considered them "low and ungentlemanly," according to Foster, as quoted in Robert Peterson's Only the Ball Was White.

In addition to traveling with the Yellow Jackets, Foster pitched to white major league teams that came to Texas for spring training. Legend has it that during a 1901 batting practice with Connie Mack 's Philadelphia Athletics, baseball manager John McGraw recognized Foster's pitching ability and wanted him for his New York Giants. However, blacks were barred from playing in the major leagues.

Moves North, Earns Nickname

In 1902, Foster moved to Chicago, where he joined the Chicago Union Giants, better known as the Leland Giants for owner Frank Leland, a veteran of black baseball. The same year, he moved to Philadelphia and switched to E. B. Lamar's Union Giants, or Cuban Giants. Around this time he outpitched the Philadelphia Athletics's star pitcher Rube Waddell in an exhibition game, earning himself the nickname "Rube" as a trophy. It would stick with him for the rest of his life.

In 1903 he switched to a rival Philadelphia team, the Cuban X-Giants, pitching that fall in black baseball's first World Series, which the X-Giants won five games to two. Legend has it that the same year McGraw asked Foster to teach his "fadeaway" screwball pitch to his New York Giants pitchers Christy Mathewson , Iron Man McGinnity, and Red Ames. Soon afterward, the Giants rose from last place in the league to second.

In 1904, Foster and most of the X-Giants team switched back to the Union Giants and won the three-game World Series over their former team. Statistics on Foster are often missing or sketchy and the truth is hard to determine, but for 1905 he is noted to have won 51 out of 56 games. Unhappy with his pay by 1906, Foster left Philadelphia to rejoin the Leland Giants in Chicago, where he offered to both play for and manage the team. Bringing seven of his best players with him, including power hitters John Henry Lloyd, Grant "Home Run" Johnson, and Pete Hill, Foster persuaded Frank Leland to fire his team members and hire Foster's. The new team won the Chicago semipro title in 1907, winning 110 out of 120 games, with 48 consecutive wins. In a postseason series against the Chicago City All-Stars, a white team that hired major and minor league players, Foster pitched four winning games, and his team finished first.

Chronology

1879	Born in Calvert, Texas
1896	Begins pitching with the traveling Waco Yellow Jackets, at age 17
1901	Joins the Chicago Union Giants, also known as the Leland Giants
1902	Switches to the Union Giants of Philadelphia
1902	Outpitches white star Rube Waddell of the Philadelphia Athletics in an exhibition game, earning himself the nickname "Rube" as a trophy
1903	Joins the Cuban X-Giants, also of Philadelphia and helps the team win the first black World Series
1904	Rejoins the Union Giants and helps them win World Series over the X-Giants
1907	Joins the Leland Giants as both manager and player, bringing with him seven teammates; persuades owner Frank Leland to fire some of his players and hire Foster's
1911	Forms partnership with John M. Schorling and creates Chicago American Giants, a team Foster called the greatest he ever assembled
1919	Race riots erupt in Chicago and other cities
1919	Calls meeting of best black ball clubs in Midwest and proposes formation of Negro National League, to be governed by National Association of Colored Professional Base Ball Clubs
1920	Foster presents constitution and incorporation documents to owners of black ball clubs to form eight-team Negro National League; Southern Negro League is formed later in year
1922	Negro League teams barnstorm in Japan
1923	Eastern Colored League is formed
1924	NNL Kansas City Monarchs beat ECL Philadelphia Hilldale Club in official Negro World Series
1925	Is exposed to gas leak in Indianapolis; health begins to fail
1926	Is placed in Illinois state asylum at Kankakee after nervous breakdown
1928	Schorling sells American Giants to white florist William E. Trimble
1930	Foster dies of heart attack; 3,000 attend funeral in Chicago
1981	Is inducted into Baseball Hall of Fame

Foster's pitching skills were by this time so finely tuned that Hall of Famer Honus Wagner once called him "one of the greatest pitchers of all time … smartest pitcher I've ever seen." Chicago Cubs manager Frank Chance called him "the most finished product I've ever seen in the pitcher's box." Foster was a big man, standing six feet four inches tall and weighing between 224 and 260 pounds. Although the fans loved him, many players were said to dislike or even fear him because he "engaged in personalities" when he pitched and often carried his Texas six-guns. He unnerved players by smiling and appearing jovial and unconcerned on the field. He often distracted batters and tricked them into striking out. His searing fastball and powerful underhand screwball made him a star pitching attraction of black baseball and the envy of many white pitchers.

Chicago American Giants

The facts are unclear on the year in which Foster first formed his great team the Chicago American Giants. Some sources say he changed the Leland Giants's name to American Giants as early as 1908, but most say he first formed the team in 1911, after entering into a partnership with John M. Schorling, a white tavern owner who was also baseball manager Charles Comiskey's son-in-law. This partnership allowed the American Giants to make use of the Chicago White Sox's former home at South Side Park after the white team moved into the new Comiskey Park.

Whether the Leland Giants or the American Giants, however, Foster's team in 1910 won 123 out of 129 games. No major league ball club stepped forward to respond to Foster's challenge of a series game that year. His team had narrowly lost to the Chicago Cubs in such a challenge in 1909. By 1911, the Chicago American Giants dominated semipro baseball in Chicago as well as national black baseball. They played about half of their games barnstorming and half in the Chicago City League, which included one other black team and a dozen white semipro teams.

The American Giants's popularity grew with each season. They won the Chicago semipro crown in 1911 and 1912. They enlisted Jack Johnson , heavyweight boxing champion, to give souvenirs to women fans and heavily advertised their games. While barnstorming, they traveled by private Pullman railroad car. The team wore a different set of uniforms each day and played with a variety of bats and balls. Foster was not above using certain tricks to ensure the success of his team. He reportedly froze baseballs to make them harder to hit and built slight ridges along the foul lines so bunted balls would stay within the playing field. Emulating such powerful white baseball executives as Ban Johnson and John McGraw, Foster paid his players well, demanded top performance from them, and enticed new players with the promise of prestige and the best in travel amenities. But for the color of his skin, Foster would likely have equaled his two colleagues in professional stature.

Some of the Chicago American Giants players who have since become baseball legends themselves were James "Cool Papa" Bell , Willie Wells, and Oscar Charleston. Many of the American Giants were known as "racehorses" because they could sprint a hundred yards in less than ten seconds. Foster continued to pitch for the team and developed a technique of bunt-and-run for his batters that nearly always led to successful plays. The fans, both black and white, loved the Giants. According to Michael L. Cooper in Playing America's Game: The Story of Negro League Baseball, one Sunday in 1911 when all three Chicago teams played at home, the Giants drew some 11,000 fans, the White Sox 9,000, and the Cubs 6,000. The American Giants won black baseball championships in 1914 and 1917 and shared the 1915 championship with the New York Lincoln Stars. They also won the California Winter League crown in 1915, competing with white major leaguers following the regular season. In 1916, with Foster still pitching for them at age 35, the Giants won the Colored World Series against the Brooklyn Royal Giants. By 1918, Foster was paying his players $1,700 a month, yet some Eastern teams enticed them away for more money.

Related Biography: Baseball Executive Ban Johnson

Byron Bancroft "Ban" Johnson is known as the founder of baseball's American League. He defined the role of baseball executive during the 1890s and early 1900s and earned the title "the Czar of Baseball" during his term on the National Commission, from 1903 to 1920. He was president of the American League from 1901 to 1927.

Born January 5, 1864, in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of a school administrator, Johnson played baseball at Marietta College. He entered the University of Cincinnati Law School but did not complete his degree, instead becoming a sportswriter and then sports editor for the Cincinnati Commercial-Gazette.

Johnson and his close friend Charlie Comiskey, manager of the Cincinnati Reds, talked often of ways to improve baseball, and in 1894 Johnson was hired as president of the Western League on Comiskey's recommendation. After Comiskey left the Reds, he joined Johnson, and the two began expanding the league's teams and changed its name to the American League (AL) in 1900. One year later, the league had major status, and by 1903 its teams were competing with the National League (NL) in the World Series.

Johnson was known as a shrewd, imaginative, vain, stubborn, hard-driving executive with rigorous standards. He persuaded millionaires to finance his teams, brought order to rowdy play on the field, garnered respect for umpires, appointed managers, traded players, arranged travel schedules, and brought publicity and respectability to baseball through such tactics as having President William Howard Taft throw out the ball on opening day.

However, in time Johnson's iron rule sat poorly with American League owners. The infamous "Chicago Black Sox" scandal, in which players were accused of gambling fixes in 1919, led to an investigation and the resulting abolition of the National Commission. Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was appointed Commissioner of Baseball, and although Johnson remained president of the American League, his power was limited. He resigned from the league in 1927 in ill health and died from complications of diabetes in 1931. He was named to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937.

The Negro National League

The atmosphere at the time Foster formed a separate league for black baseball players was one of growth and change, even violent unrest, in Chicago. The African-American population of the city had doubled between 1910 and 1920, as blacks fled ill treatment in the South and moved north for jobs in factories and stockyards. In 1919, Chicago and other cities were torn by race riots. National Guardsmen moved in after thirty-eight people were killed in the city. Although opportunities were plentiful for black entrepreneurs, many of the profits were retained by whites. African-American intellectual John Hope had said, "The white man has converted and reconverted the Negro's labor and the Negro's money into capital until we find an immense section of the developed country owned by whites and worked by colored…. We must take in some, if not all, of the wages, turn it into capital, hold it, increase it."

What was true in the general economy for blacks was also true in black baseball. White interests controlled the stadiums where black teams played and took large percentages of the gate. Teams that objected were not allowed to play. White booking agents had already begun to do away with black team owners and control the teams themselves. Foster wanted to create an all-black baseball enterprise that would keep money earned from games in black pockets. He wanted to form a league for black players that would mirror the major leagues and would eventually play the white leagues in World Series games. He also foresaw the integration of baseball and wanted to be ready to accept white teams into black leagues and vice versa.

Launching a public relations campaign through the Chicago Defender, in 1919 Foster called a meeting of the Midwest's best black ball clubs and proposed the formation of a Negro National League, to be governed by the National Association of Colored Professional Base Ball Clubs. After a year-long struggle, on February 13 and 14, 1920, Foster met with owners of the black clubs at the Kansas City, Missouri, Young Men's Christian Association and presented to them a constitution forming the league, with complete incorporation papers. The constitution laid down rules of conduct during games and prohibited team-jumping and raiding other teams for players, among other restrictions. Foster said his goal in forming the league was "to create a profession that would equal the earning capacity of any other profession… keep Colored baseball from the control of whites [and] do something concrete for the loyalty of the Race." The owners accepted the agreement, and within the year the Negro National League (NNL), whose motto was "We are the ship, all else the sea," played its first contest.

The original NNL consisted of the Chicago American Giants, Chicago Giants, St. Louis Giants, Dayton Marcos, Detroit Stars, Indianapolis ABCs, Cincinnati Cuban Stars, and the Kansas City Monarchs. It provided for black ownership of all Negro National League teams, but one white owner, J. L. Wilkinson of the Kansas City Monarchs, was retained. A highly popular owner who proved to have the players' best interests at heart, Wilkinson managed the Monarchs to become one of the most successful black teams in history. By the mid-1940s, the Monarchs would include such players as Buck O'Neil and Jackie Robinson. In his mid-eighties, O'Neil was considered a national spokesman for Negro league baseball and was featured prominently in the nine-part film by Ken Burns, Baseball, which covers the Negro leagues and deals with the subject of race in baseball as an underlying theme.

The club owners elected Foster as first NNL commissioner, and he worked wholeheartedly to make the league and its teams a success. He sent his former player Pete Hill to coach the Detroit Stars and gave up Oscar Charleston to the Indianapolis ABCs in order to strengthen those teams. To ensure that payrolls were met on time, Foster sometimes took out loans or paid salaries out of his own pocket. He called everyone "Darlin'" and smoked a big pipe, and he is said to have had total control over his players on the field. He constantly shifted players within the league to bring equality to teams and avoid criticism from some owners who claimed he had too much power and could hire umpires favorable to his own team, the American Giants. Some even called him the Godfather of Black Baseball, because he had a majority interest in the Detroit Stars and the Dayton Marcos as well. A successful businessman, Foster also owned a barbershop and an automobile service shop.

Foster's Chicago American Giants continued to play as well as ever under the new league, winning the pennant in 1920, 1921, and 1922. Inspired by the NNL, Southern teams formed the Southern Negro League in the spring of 1920. It was made up of teams from Atlanta, New Orleans, Memphis, Birmingham, and Nashville. Although not as prosperous as the NNL, these teams supplied northern teams with some players who would become famous in their day, such as George "Mule" Suttles, Norman "Turkey" Stearnes, and the great pitcher Satchel Paige .

Awards and Accomplishments

1906	Pitched Philadelphia Giants to 3-2 win over Cuban X-Giants for Negro Championship Cup
1907	Managed and played for Leland Giants, to 110-10 finish and
pennant win in Chicago's otherwise all-white City League
1911-12	Managed American Giants to win Chicago semipro crown
1914	Managed American Giants to win Chicago City League pennant
1915	Managed American Giants to tie for pennant with New York Lincoln Stars
1915	Managed American Giants to win California Winter League Crown in competition with white major leaguers after end of
season
1916	Managed American Giants to win colored World Series
1917	Managed American Giants to win Chicago City League pennant
1920-22	Managed American Giants to three Negro National League pennant wins
1981	Inducted into Baseball Hall of Fame

In 1923, East Coast teams formed the Eastern Colored League (ECL), including teams from Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Atlantic City, Baltimore, and two New York teams. According to Cooper, in 1922 the American Giants had faced off against the Atlantic City Bacharachs and played for nineteen innings with neither team scoring. Finally, the Bacharachs placed a right fielder with a weak arm, and Foster signaled his batter to hit to right field. The fielder's throw fell short of home plate, and the Giants won the game 1-0.

Foster continued to manage his Giants and the NNL in 1923, and he made efforts to merge the NNL and the ECL in 1924 but was unsuccessful. The Kansas City Monarchs met the Philadelphia Hilldale Club in the first Negro World Series in 1924. After a tie of four wins apiece in games played in four different cities, the Monarchs won the World Series title in the last game, 5-0. In 1925, the Hilldale Club beat the Monarchs in the Series; the American Giants won the Negro World Series in 1926 and 1927, although Foster was too ill to see them play.

Decline into Mental Illness and Death

Some historians have said that Foster's tireless work in establishing and managing the NNL and his own team had ruined his health by the mid-1920s. In 1925 he was exposed to a gas leak in a room in Indianapolis and was pulled from the room unconscious. Although he recovered, his health was never the same. In 1926 his behavior became so erratic that he was placed in the Illinois State Hospital in Kankakee, where he lived out the rest of his life. Although he talked constantly of baseball and wanted desperately to win another pennant, Foster never saw his Giants play in the Negro World Series for which he had worked so hard. He died of a heart attack on December 9, 1930. More than 3,000 mourners attended his funeral in Chicago, standing in icy rain and wind to witness the procession and pay their respects. He was eulogized as the "father of Negro baseball." His widow, Sarah Watts Foster, was unfamiliar with his business arrangements and realized no benefits from his ventures. His partner, John Schorling, had sold the American Giants to a white florist, William E. Trimble, in 1928. Although black businessmen bought it in 1930, the team never reached its former level.

The NNL dissolved in 1931, during the Great Depression, after several years of declining financial success and the absence of Foster's guiding hand. It was revived, however, in the mid-1930s, and black teams went on to play in the Negro leagues until about 1960, some fifteen years after Jackie Robinson became the first African-American player of the twentieth century to sign with a white major league team. The integration of African-American players into the major leagues caused fans to follow those teams with greater interest, and the Negro leagues declined and finally folded.

Foster's Legacy

Although it meant the end of the Negro leagues, integration was the ultimate goal of Rube Foster and his colleagues, and it was achieved. Nearly forty more black players had followed Robinson into the major leagues by 1949, among them, Roy Campanella, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron , and Paige. Foster had devoted his energy and his life to black baseball and to the uplifting of the sport and of his fellow African-American athletes, whom he helped to gain a high level of respect. He served as a star pitcher until his late thirties, served for some fifteen years as a baseball manager, and served as commissioner of the NNL for five years. He has often been called the greatest baseball manager of any race. Foster was also a great teacher, who taught not only his pitching skills to some of the game's greatest pitchers but his managing skills to a second generation of black managers, including Oscar Charleston, Dave Malarcher, and Biz Mackey. His induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981 and the establishment of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City during the mid-1990s leave no doubt that Foster and the ideals for which he stood have achieved a national appreciation.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Books

Cooper, Michael L. Playing America's Game: The Story of Negro League Baseball. New York: Dutton, 1993.

Lester, Larry, Sammy J. Miller, and Dick Clark. Black Baseball in Detroit. Arcadia Publishing, 2000.

Notable Black American Men. Detroit: Gale, 1998.

Peterson, Robert. Only the Ball Was White. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1970.

Periodicals

Keisser, Bob. "When Only the Ball Was White History: Former Negro League Players Spread the Word about Their Innovative Game." Long Beach Press-Telegram (February 24, 1997): C1.

Story, Rosalyn. "A Museum of Their Own: Kansas City Preserves the Legacy of Negro Leagues Players." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (July 10, 1997): C-1.

Whiteside, Larry. "Long before Jackie Robinson's Historic Debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Negro League Players Thrived in Anonymity—and Made His Signing Possible, Paving the Way." Boston Globe (July 9, 1999): F5.

Other

"Ban Johnson: AL President 1901-1927." SportsEcyclopedia.com. http://www.sportsecyclopedia.com/mlb/al/bjohnson.html. (October 5, 2002).

Goldman, Steve. "The Genius: Foster Made Negro League Baseball Successful." MajorLeagueBaseball.com. http://mlb.com (October 5, 2002).

Kleinknect, Merl F. "Rube Foster." BaseballLibrary.com.http://www.pubdim.net/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/(September 17, 2002).

Kleinman, Jeremy. "Baseball: A Film by Ken Burns Pt. 1." DVD Talk.com. http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews (October 5, 2002).

Rogosin, W. Donn. "Foster, Andrew [Rube]." The Handbook of Texas Online. http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/ handbook/online/articles/view/FF/(September 19, 2002).

Suehsdorf, A. D. "Ban Johnson." BaseballLibrary.com. http://www.pubdim.net/baseballlibrary/(October 4, 2002).

"The 20th Century's Greatest Sports Losers." ESPN.com. http://espn.go.com/(October 5, 2002).

Sketch by Ann H. Shurgin