Andrew Rube Foster

Although Andrew "Rube" Foster (1879-1930) stands among the best African American pitchers of the 1900s, this baseball pioneer made his name as the founder and president of the Negro National League, the first all-black league to survive a full season. In addition to founding this groundbreaking black-owned and -operated business, Foster also founded and managed the Chicago American Giants, one of the most successful black baseball teams of the pre-integration era. This definitive biography combines period editorials and correspondence with insightful narrative to provide a comprehensive portrait of this innovative Hall of Famer. From the unstructured early days of black baseball, when Foster gained glory as a hard-throwing pitcher, through his struggles to establish the NNL and the Giants, to his tragic death from complications of syphilis, this work pays overdue tribute to an authentic American baseball icon.

From the best-selling author of the Negro Baseball Leagues: A Photographic History, 1867-1955 comes the definitive biography on the career of an outstanding baseball pitcher, manager, and President of the Negro National League. Andrew "Rube" Foster is in a class all to himself as an architect of race relations and social progress in American baseball. His most lasting legacy was the founding of the Negro National League in 1920, which provided opportunities for an entire generation of African-American athletes. Although there were few opportunities when he was in his youth, Foster, the son of a former slave, sought success on baseball fields throughout the South with the Waco Yellow Jackets. Leaving Texas in 1902, he arrived in Chicago where two African-American men, Frank C. Leland and William S. Peters, had already achieved some of what Foster had dreamed of doing himself. They were operating their own teams, hiring talented players and turning a profit on their labor. Labeled as aloof and ineffective as a pitcher, Foster left Chicago after only one season with the Chicago Union Giants. Yet believing in himself, Foster traveled East to where Grant "Home Run" Johnson was training his Cuban X Giants team, and sought employment. In his only season with the Cuban X Giants Foster's pitching led them to the World's Championship. Foster was lured to the Philadelphia Giants in 1904, a team under the leadership of Sol White, and Foster promptly pitched them to their first World's Championship. Philadelphia's Championship run was repeated in 1905 and 1906. Having matured as a player under Johnson's and White's guidance, Foster sought to manage a team of his own in 1907. Although revered as a stern taskmaster, Foster had great charisma with players and fans. In 1907 he returned to Chicago, this time as manager of Leland's team, the Chicago Leland Giants. Arriving with Foster were players from the Brooklyn Royal Giants, Philadelphia's Giants, and the Cuban X Giants. As a result, he fired all of Leland's former players and replaced them with men that had played in the East. Foster's new team dominated baseball's freedom fields as no African-American team had before them. In 1909, the Foster-led Leland Giants captured the City League pennant and then battled the National League's Chicago Cubs for City Championship honors. The next year, in 1910, Foster fielded his best team ever. His team finished with just six games lost. Having won many victories, Chicago's Leland Giants symbolized economic equality, inspired social change, and provoked African-American pride. Crowds filled the parks when and wherever Foster and his team appeared. Charles Comiskey and members of the Chicago White Sox, the World's Champion Chicago Cubs, John McGraw and Connie Mack sought to see the legendary Andrew "Rube" Foster in action. Based on twenty years of research, Andrew "Rube" Foster: A Harvest on Freedom's Fields is an inspiring story of an enduring figure and the many individuals who inspired his success on baseball fields all over America.

Although Andrew "Rube" Foster (1879-1930) stands among the best African American pitchers of the 1900s, this baseball pioneer made his name as the founder and president of the Negro National League, the first all-black league to survive a full season. In addition to founding this groundbreaking black-owned and -operated business, Foster also founded and managed the Chicago American Giants, one of the most successful black baseball teams of the pre-integration era. This definitive biography combines period editorials and correspondence with insightful narrative to provide a comprehensive portrait of this innovative Hall of Famer. From the unstructured early days of black baseball, when Foster gained glory as a hard-throwing pitcher, through his struggles to establish the NNL and the Giants, to his tragic death from complications of syphilis, this work pays overdue tribute to an authentic American baseball icon.

Stearnes established virtually all of the team's individual and career records during his nine seasons with Detroit.

As early-twentieth-century Chicago swelled with an influx of at least 250,000 new black urban migrants, the city became a center of consumer capitalism, flourishing with professional sports, beauty shops, film production companies, recording studios, and other black cultural and communal institutions. Davarian Baldwin argues that this mass consumer marketplace generated a vibrant intellectual life and planted seeds of political dissent against the dehumanizing effects of white capitalism. Pushing the traditional boundaries of the Harlem Renaissance to new frontiers, Baldwin identifies a fresh model of urban culture rich with politics, ingenuity, and entrepreneurship. Baldwin explores an abundant archive of cultural formations where an array of white observers, black cultural producers, critics, activists, reformers, and black migrant consumers converged in what he terms a "marketplace intellectual life." Here the thoughts and lives of Madam C. J. Walker, Oscar Micheaux, Andrew "Rube" Foster, Elder Lucy Smith, Jack Johnson, and Thomas Dorsey emerge as individual expressions of a much wider spectrum of black political and intellectual possibilities. By placing consumer-based amusements alongside the more formal arenas of church and academe, Baldwin suggests important new directions for both the historical study and the constructive future of ideas and politics in American life.

A portrait of one of the great figures of the Negro League recreates the life of Rube Foster, the pitcher, manager, and administrator who helped shaped the league into a success.

How good was Negro League Baseball (1920-1948)? Some experts maintain that the quality of play was equal to that of the American and National Leagues. Some believe the Negro Leagues should be part of Major League Baseball's official record and that more Negro League players should be in the Hall of Fame. Skeptics contend that while many players could be rated highly, NL organizations were minor league at best. Drawing on the most comprehensive data available, including stats from more than 2,000 interracial games, this study finds that black baseball was very good indeed. Negro leaguers beat the big leaguers more than half the time in head-to-head contests, demonstrated stronger metrics within their own leagues and excelled when finally allowed into the majors. The authors document the often duplicitous manner in which MLB has dealt with the legacy of the Negro Leagues, and an appendix includes the scores and statistics from every known contest between Negro League and Major League teams.

“We are the ship; all else the sea.”—Rube Foster, founder of the Negro National League The story of Negro League baseball is the story of gifted athletes and determined owners; of racial discrimination and international sportsmanship; of fortunes won and lost; of triumphs and defeats on and off the field. It is a perfect mirror for the social and political history of black America in the first half of the twentieth century. But most of all, the story of the Negro Leagues is about hundreds of unsung heroes who overcame segregation, hatred, terrible conditions, and low pay to do the one thing they loved more than anything else in the world: play ball. Using an “Everyman” player as his narrator, Kadir Nelson tells the story of Negro League baseball from its beginnings in the 1920s through its decline after Jackie Robinson crossed over to the majors in 1947. The voice is so authentic, you will feel as if you are sitting on dusty bleachers listening intently to the memories of a man who has known the great ballplayers of that time and shared their experiences. But what makes this book so outstanding are the dozens of full-page and double-page oil paintings—breathtaking in their perspectives, rich in emotion, and created with understanding and affection for these lost heroes of our national game. We Are the Ship is a tour de force for baseball lovers of all ages.