No man better merits the title of “the father of black baseball.” Foster was a visionary and one of baseball’s genuine Renaissance men. He had an eye for raw talent and he was an ingenious innovator of strategy. Without the organization Foster imposed upon black baseball, the Negro Leagues could never have survived and prospered.

In spite of the racist color line, Foster earned the respect of his white counterparts. John McGraw retained him as a pitching tutor for his Giants staff in 1901. Foster supposedly taught young Christy Mathewson how to throw his famous fadeaway pitch, the pitch that Christy then rode to the Hall of Fame. Foster earned the nickname “Rube” by out-pitching Rube Waddell of the Philadelphia Athletics in a 1903 exhibition game.

As a Negro League manager, Foster built his teams on speed and smarts. Arthur Hardy, a pitcher for Foster, once said, “Rube wasn’t harsh, but he was strict.” Managers from the white big leagues commonly came to learn strategy by watching Foster at work.

In 1919, Rube joined a number of club owners to form the Negro National League (NNL). Not surprisingly, Foster was elected president and secretary. The slogan on the NNL letterhead read, “We are the ship, all else the sea.” Rube Foster was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981.