Rube Foster: Bringing an Empire to Kansas City

While Branch Rickey had made his stamp in 1919-20 with the farm system in St. Louis, 300 miles across the state of Missouri, Kansas City was beginning success of its own, and the pioneer leading the charge was Andrew ‘Rube’ Foster. He became one of few men to be a successful manager and executive in baseball and brought about a change that would impact baseball forever.

Although Major League Baseball had become a nationwide hit in the early years of the 20th Century, it had one major flaw: segregation and prejudice towards African Americans. 20 years into the 20th Century, black players were barred from organized baseball and had been since the 1880s.

Baseball functioned as a critical component in the separate economy catering to black consumers in the urban centers of the north and south. While most black businesses struggled to survive from year to year, professional baseball teams and leagues operated for decades, representing a major achievement in black enterprise and institution building."

Then in 1920, the Negro Leagues were established, welcoming African American as well as several Latin American ballplayers to compete at the highest level of organized baseball. Although there had been several black professional baseball teams formed in the 1880s, low attendance caused them to deteriorate.

Rube Foster had written a column for the Chicago Defender calling out the major pitfall in big league baseball in the winter of 1919.

Then in 1920, he acted on it.

Rube organized a meeting at the Paseo YMCA in Kansas City on February 13, 1920. Included in the meeting were seven other managers of black teams throughout the Midwest, as well as a couple of sportswriters and an attorney.

Needless to say, the league named Rube Foster as its president.

Born in 1879 in Calvert, Texas, Foster had played baseball since the earliest days of his childhood and developed himself into being a dominant pitcher.

He got his nickname because he once beat Major League Baseball Hall of fame pitcher Rube Waddell in a postseason exhibition game in 1903 and was later known as the “Father of Black Baseball.”

Foster also believed in competitive balance.

In his ‘Pitfall of Baseball’ series he composed for Chicago the year before, he wrote:

“Promoters didn’t realize that having the best team in the world and no other team able to compete with it will lose more money on the season than those that are evenly matched.” 

         - Chicago Defender 

Finally, he made the motto of the league be: “We are the ship. All else the sea.” (Cottrell)

Foster stated:

“It’s my objective to provide the north’s growing black population with professional baseball of their own. To do something concrete for the loyalty of the race, and to eventually challenge the major leagues.”

“What I’ve got to admire Rube for is that he saw that he couldn’t get in with the white owners, but he didn’t quit! He formed a league of his own. Formed a black league which was a very successful operation. Actually, probably the third biggest black business in the world.”

         - (Buck O’Neil, 1991)

Like the major leagues, Foster wanted to instill the same kind of hard-nosed play and hard work ethic to succeed with his league.

Rube fined any member of his team $5,000 if he were tagged out standing up.

“You’re supposed to slide!” he said.

The story of black professional baseball provides a remarkable window into several major themes in modern African American history: the initial black response to segregation, the subsequent struggle to establish successful separate enterprises, and the later movement toward integration.

As president of the professional baseball circuit for African American players, Foster controlled league operations and was manager of the Chicago American Giants.

Likewise, to the National and American League, the Negro League comprised of eight teams in 1920: the Chicago American Giants, Chicago Giants, Detroit Stars, St. Louis Giants, Indianapolis ABC’s, Dayton Marcos, Cuban Stars, and the Kansas City Monarchs.

Kansas City had been home to the establishment of the Negro Leagues, and home to the most prominent and successful team the league ever had.

The Monarchs were founded by James Leslie Wilkinson, an American sports executive who had been a pitcher at a young age before he hurt his showing wrist. After that he decided to pursue team ownership and management. He actually developed a women’s baseball team in 1909, but that was just the beginning.

Wilkinson had recruited African American players from various sources, with most of them coming from the 25th Infantry Wreckers, an all-black baseball team recruited into the United States Army during World War I.

“The Monarchs were one of the great barnstorming teams in addition to the negro leagues, and they would travel to various towns during the offseason and play exhibition games for people to see and to build a fanbase. They were filling up ballparks all across the country. There are some who say that the Kansas City Monarchs were the New York Yankees of the Negro Leagues, while there are some that say the New York Yankees are the KC Monarchs of Major League Baseball. They were that good.”

         - (Bob Kendrick, President, Negro League Baseball Museum)

Through their history of nearly 40 seasons, guess how many losing seasons the Monarchs had.

One.

That’s it.

What else contributed to the success and popularity of the Kansas City Monarchs?

Well in the 1930s, they introduced night baseball with portable light systems powered by portable generators attached to retractable poles. The Monarchs were the first organized team to play baseball under artificial light, including the major leagues.

Throughout the 1920s, the Monarchs’ popularity continued to rise, as well as the team’s performance.

In 1924, Rube Foster and Ed Bolden, another Negro League executive, met in the winter to discuss the possibility of hosting a championship series each year. After seeing the popularity that the MLB World Series had endured, Foster and Bolden agreed to an annual Negro League World Series in October 1924.

The two teams that played were the Kansas City Monarchs and the Hillsdale Athletic Club, a team brought into the league the year before based in Philadelphia.

The series would be a nine-game contest beginning on October 3.

Cuban pitcher Jose Mendez was their best player on the season, compiling a 7-1 record after going 11-4 the year before while helping propel his team to the league championship.

The first two games would be played in Philadelphia, and a five-run sixth inning helped the Monarchs to a 6-2 win in game one. In the second game, Monarchs starter Bill McCall could not get through the first inning, and Hillsdale shutout the Monarchs 11-0 on a four-hitter by pitcher Nip Winters.

With the series tied at one, the teams moved to Baltimore where their next two games were played. Game three ended in a 6-6 tie after 13 innings because of darkness, if necessary, the series would go 10 games. In game four, the Monarchs jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the third, but Hillsdale tied it up, and won it in the ninth inning as two walks and two errors proved costly to the Monarchs.

With Hillsdale now leading the contest two games to one, the series moved to Kansas City at Muehlebach Park for the next three games. The Monarchs held a 2-1 lead going into the ninth of game five, but Hillsdale scored four runs capped off by Judy Johnson’s three-run inside-the-park home run that stunned the Kansas City crowd and put Hillsdale ahead three games to one.

Despite the series deficit, Kansas City roared back, winning game six 6-5 and the game seven 4-3 in 12 heart pounding innings to tie the series at three games all. Jose Mendez came in to relieve in the seventh game and pitched brilliantly to earn the win.

The final three games were played at Schorling Park in Chicago.

Game eight was one for the ages. The Monarchs trailed 2-0 going into the bottom of the ninth, Hillsdale manager Frank Warfield made several defensive changes that included putting an aging backup catcher named Louis Santop behind the plate.

Though the Monarchs rallied, Hillsdale pitcher Rube Currie got two outs and the bases were loaded for catcher Frank Duncan. He hit a foul pop between home plate and first base, Santop got under the ball, waited for it, and then dropped it. Duncan was given a second life.

With two strikes, Duncan lined a single to the outfield that scored the tying and winning runs, putting the Monarchs one win away from the championship, and leaving Santop and the rest of his teammates devastated and in tears.

Hillsdale recuperated and won the ninth game 5-3 to set up a one-game showdown on October 20.

Jose Mendez was called upon to pitch for the Monarchs, despite having elbow surgery earlier that year. With the game scoreless in the bottom of the eighth, Kansas City scored five runs in the bottom of the frame, and Mendez shut the door for a three-game shutout, and the Kansas City Monarchs became victorious in the first ever Negro League World Series played.

“What more interesting kind of organization could black people create than leagues and baseball? It was a sport that defined America, and so black people adopting this sport and showing that they too can have leagues, games, and championships, and play this game very well. They in some ways were showing white Americans ‘yes, we’re American, and we too, can play this game’ and what they did was something very meaningful to our history and our heritage.”

-   (Ken Burns: Baseball, Jerald Early, 1990)

It was as dramatic a series as any kind in baseball history. The Monarchs maintained their dominance and would win the league title 12 times in the next 35 years.

Kansas City produced more future Major League stars, including Jackie Robinson and Ernie Banks, than any other Negro League club, while also showcasing the greatest stars the NNL ever saw such as Satchel Paige and Buck O’Neil.

But that’s another story!

As for Rube Foster, the strain and pressure of trying to manage his league and keep it alive was starting to take its toll. He grew increasingly paranoid and carried a revolver everywhere he went. Finally, in 1926, after suffering from the delusion that he would get a call to pitch in the white World Series, Foster had to be institutionalized. He died four years later on December 9, 1930.

December 9, ironically, is the same date that Branch Rickey died (December 9, 1965).

3,000 mourners came to his funeral, stood through a cold winter rain, and paid their final respects. One newspaper reported that his coffin was closed at 5:00 pm, the hour a ballgame usually ends.

“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 shrewd but creative field manager, and the founder and stern administrator of the first viable Negro League, Foster was the most impressive figure in black baseball history.” – Robert Peterson: Author of Only the Ball was White

Despite the loss of Foster, the Negro National League, and organized black baseball managed to stay alive.