Foster, Rube (1879-1930), was an African American baseball player, manager, and administrator. In 1920, Foster helped found the Negro National League (NNL), the first successful professional baseball league for Black players. African Americans had been excluded from playing in major league baseball. Foster served as president and treasurer of the NNL until 1926. His policies were largely responsible for the league’s success and earned him the title of “father of Black baseball.”
Andrew Foster was born on Sept. 17, 1879, in Calvert, Texas. He began playing semiprofessional baseball as a teenager. He joined the Cuban Union Giants as a pitcher in 1902. He left to join Bardeen’s Otsego Independents, an integrated semiprofessional team in Michigan. In 1904, he returned to an all-Black team, the Cuban X-Giants, before moving to the Philadelphia Giants in 1905 and then in 1907 to the Leland Giants, the former Union Giants. Foster was recognized as the top pitcher in the Negro leagues for nearly a decade. He played mainly against Black teams but also in exhibition games against white major league teams and against teams in Cuba. He became the Giants’ manager and then co-owner of the team in 1911. Foster renamed the team the Chicago American Giants. Serving as owner, manager, and player, Foster made the Giants one of the greatest teams in Black baseball history.
In 1925, Foster nearly died from a gas leak. The following year, he began to suffer from mental problems and some historians have suggested the gas leak incident may have been responsible for his mental difficulties. Foster spent the last four years of his life in an institution. He died on Dec. 9, 1930. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981.
