'Rube' Foster: Negro League Icon

In his book “Only the Ball was White,” author Robert Peterson wrote, “If the talents of Christy Mathewson, John McGraw, Ban Johnson and Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis were combined in a single body, and that body was enveloped in a black skin, the result would have to be named Andrew ‘Rube’ Foster. As an outstanding pitcher, a colorful and shrewd field manager, and the founder and stern administrator of the first viable Negro League, Foster was the most impressive figure in black baseball history.”

Jackie Robinson, the first negro baseball player to cross the color line, is rightly acknowledged as a civil rights champion for blacks in the major leagues. Robinson has a day set aside on the Major League Baseball schedule ---April 15, the day Robinson first appeared in a Brooklyn Dodgers uniform and played first base. But Foster’s name is all but lost; “Rube” is a forgotten baseball pioneer.

Foster broke into professional baseball in 1902 at age 25 with the Cuban X Giants and immediately wowed fellow players, coaches and managers with his curve ball. When the 5-foot-9, 230-pound Foster arrived on the baseball scene, a legend was born. As the tale goes, Foster’s success attracted New York Giants manager John McGraw’s attention. McGraw, thinking that his budding pitching star Mathewson needed further instruction, asked Foster to tutor his young hurler. Some baseball historians credit Foster with teaching Mathewson his famous fadeaway. Another advantage Foster offered managers was his ability to play multiple outfield, infield and catcher positions.

Lured by a higher salary, Foster moved to the Philadelphia Giants in 1904. With the Giants, Foster blossomed. In a post-career interview, Foster said, “In 1905, I won 51 out of 55 games I pitched for that season. … It was when we beat the Athletics, with Rube Waddell pitching, that they gave me the name of the colored Rube Waddell.”

Again seeking more money, Foster signed with the Leland Giants of Chicago, a powerhouse that went 110-10 in 1907. By 1910, Foster became part-owner of black baseball’s preeminent squad, the Chicago American Giants, a team which dominated their opposition. In 1911 the American Giants went 78-27 and claimed the first of four consecutive championships. As the American Giants added superstars like Smokey Joe Williams and with Foster still pitching, the team rolled on to notch a 126-16 record in 1914. Foster and his American Giants played on, mostly successfully, through 1926.

In 1920, Foster organized a meeting to create a Negro baseball league that resembled the white-only major leagues. The owners of seven other black baseball teams attended along with a few sportswriters and an attorney. Foster had long yearned to organize a black league; the 1919 Chicago race riots provided the final impetus. The riot, sparked by the drowning of a black teenager, Eugene Williams, after a confrontation at a segregated beach, was a violent conflict between white and black Americans that resulted in 38 deaths and over 500 injuries. Over several days, eight teams---the Chicago American Giants, Detroit Stars, Cuban Stars, Kansas City Monarchs, St. Louis Giants, Indianapolis ABCs, and the Chicago Giants---agreed to a league constitution and bylaws, and appointed Foster as president. The league’s motto was “We are the ship. All else is the sea.”

In early June of 1925, while staying at an Indianapolis boarding house, Foster’s players found him unconscious and lying against a gas heater. He had accidentally inhaled fumes from a leaking gas pipe that led to mental incapacity. His increasingly erratic behavior landed Foster in an Illinois state institution where he remained for four years before passing away at age 51. One of baseball’s greatest players who had envisioned the day when black and white players would compete equally on the diamond died tragically in an insane asylum.

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research historian. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com