Rube Foster

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Andrew Rube Foster (September 17 1878 or 1879 - December 9 1930) was an American baseball pitcher and manager who was most notably the founder of the Negro National League, the first stable professional league for African-American ballplayers, which operated from 1920 to 1931. He was born in Calvert, Texas. He adopted his longtime nickname "Rube" as his official middle name later in life.

A pitcher of some renown, Foster could not play in the white major leagues but took pride in defeating white teams during exhibition games. He later excelled as a manager and owner of the Chicago American Giants, a barnstorming baseball team.

Template:MLB HoF In 1920, Foster founded the Negro National League, the first stable Negro League, primarily for purposes of booking games for the American Giants. With a stable schedule and reasonably solvent opponents, Foster was able to improve receipts at the gate. When opposing clubs lost money, he would often help them meet payroll, sometimes out of his own pocket. (This was in his club's own interest, of course, but also stemmed from Foster's belief that African-American ballplayers needed a stable league of their own.)

Generally thought of as Foster's top player, Pete Hill was often team captain on whatever Foster's next project was.

Foster ran the American Giants and the NNL with a firm hand (some say too firm), until he fell ill in 1926. After a lingering illness, he died in Kankakee, Illinois in 1930. After his death, without an equally firm hand at the tiller, the league folded, but was succeeded in 1933 by the new Negro National League.

He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981.

Foster is interred in Lincoln Cemetery in Blue Island, Illinois.

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