CALVERT, Texas — In Calvert, Texas, it's 1879. A preacher and a sharecropper gave birth to a son — Andrew “Rube” Foster.
Little did they know, he would go on to be one of the most influential figures in baseball history.
At 18-years-old, Rube began playing semi-professional baseball for the Waco Yellow Jackets.
He once pitched 11 games in 11 days and won every game. In fact, Foster received the nickname "Rube" after beating the Philadelphia Athletics' star left-hander, Rube Waddell, in a postseason exhibition game.
While he was known for his fastball, Rube was also credited with the invention of the screwball.
“Rube mastered that pitch,” said Bob Kendrick, President of the Negro League Baseball Museum.
“He taught a young Christy Mathewson how to throw the screwball. The great manager John McGraw, snuck him [Rube] into his camp so that he could teach Christy Mathewson how to throw the screwball and then Christy Mathewson threw the pitch all the way into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.”
But aside from his impressive athletic prowess, Rube’s impact on baseball would far transcend his accomplishments on the field.
In the early 1900’s, black baseball teams were taking the nation by storm. Foster, then a head coach, continued to find success on the diamond. His style as a manager was no different from his style as a player — aggressive and intimidating.
This made for an entertaining game to watch. Bunting, baserunning, and hit-and-runs were all part of Rube’s strategy as a manager.
“He was adamant about this style of play. But it’s also one of the reasons, that Negro Leagues Baseball became a fan favorite,” Kendrick said.
“Now you’re seeing a different style of baseball and it was also a reason why the Negro League teams were winning a majority of those games against their Major League counterparts in those head-to-head matchups through so many exhibition games, because the major leaguers were not accustomed to defending this style of play and it was exciting. The fans wanted to see this, both black and white.”
Rube was many things — a player, a coach, an owner, and a business man. But most importantly, he was a visionary.
There had been multiple attempts to start an all-black baseball league at the time — a league that would showcase incredible talent, a league that the players could make a living off of, and a league that would lead to the integration of Major League Baseball.
All prior attempts had failed…until February 13, 1920.
Rube Foster held a meeting with eight independent black baseball team owners at the Paseo YMCA in Kansas City. It was on this day that the Negro National League was born.
His vision was to create a league with phenomenal black athletes, coaches, and owners — to ultimately force Major League Baseballs' hand to add expansion teams like the Kansas City Monarchs to the league and to integrate in a way that would continue to create opportunity for black players.
“After establishing his new league, Rube Foster boldly stood there at the Paseo YMCA and uttered one of the most prophetic statements of all time... "We are the ship, all else the sea".
"He was sending notice to Major League Baseball that a new player had arrived on the scene to be reckoned with,” Kendrick said.
“It is a true indication of the forward-thinking of Andrew ‘Rube’ Foster. He was just ahead of his time in virtually every realm of this game, and he should be a household name but very few folks even know the name.”
While Rube did not live long enough to see the fruits of his labor truly pay off, it is because of that vision that the league saw success for almost 30 years — it is because of that vision that black baseball players were able to play in front of black and white fan bases to showcase their talent — and it is because of that vision that Jackie Robinson was able to break the color barrier in 1947.
“If you don’t create this foundation, if you don’t create this organized structure that gave a playing ground for all this great black and brown talent then you don’t get Jackie Robinson,” Kendrick said.
In 1981, Andrew “Rube” Foster was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He is and always will be cemented in baseball history as the Father of Black Baseball.