Baseball Hall of Famer, manager and executive who founded the Negro National League in 1920. A baseball player for 24 seasons, an innovative and successful manager and visionary executive who came to be known as the Father of Black Baseball. Andrew "Rube" Foster excelled in all facets of organized baseball. He was born in Calvert, Texas in September of 1879. By the time the 6-foot-4 Foster was a teenager he had become a supremely skilled pitcher in the Negro Leagues. He was credited with winning 51 games as a rookie in 1902. In 1903 he led the Philadelphia-based Cuban X-Giants to the championship of the black baseball circuit, winning four games in a championship series against the Philadelphia Giants. Around this time Foster acquired the nickname Rube, after an exhibition game in which he defeated one of the outstanding white pitchers of the time, Rube Waddell of the Philadelphia Athletics of the American League. Fans called him "the Black Rube". As a pitcher Foster continued to dominate the Negro Leagues over the next few years, and he also became manager for the Chicago-based Leland Giants, guiding the team to a 110-10 record in 1907. Before the start of the 1911 season, he helped form a new team, the Chicago American Giants. Foster played for and managed the team until 1915, when he retired as a player but continued to manage. By the late 1910s Foster had become convinced that black teams needed to organize into a coherent league in order to survive. Until this time black teams had usually been independent outfits, hosting visiting teams and touring the country. In 1920, however, Foster brought together the owners of the best Negro League teams in the Midwest and convinced them to form the NNL in order to stabilize team rosters, maximize revenue opportunities, and establish an organized season and championship. He was chosen as the league's first president and secretary. Foster also maintained control of the American giants, who won the first three NNL championships (1920-1922). For African-Americans who dreamed of playing baseball at the professional level but were barred from the major leagues, Foster was a God send for keeping their dream alive. Although he was criticized for influencing all aspects of the NNL, Foster was the driving force that kept the league operating and successful. The league went on to produce such baseball stars as Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard, and James "Cool Papa" Bell. In the early 1920s Foster's cognitive state began to rapidly decline as his behavior became highly erratic. Doctors eventually discovered that he was suffering from untreated third stage syphilis, which he contracted during his playing days. In 1926 his family commited him to the Kankakee State Hospital asylum in Kankakee, Illinois, where he eventually died from complications from the disease on December 9, 1930. Without Foster's leadership the NNL foundered, folding in 1931. By that time, however, other leagues for black players had been established, and in 1933 a new Negro National League was formed. When Major League Baseball began to integrate, more than 16 years after Foster's death, the Negro Leagues were in a position to contribute many players. His vision and leadership had paved the way. Andrew "Rube" Foster was later inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981.