B (4:23)
From Noiser in Airship I'm Lindsey Graham and this is History. D. History is made Every day on this podcast. Every day we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world. Today is February 13, 1920. Baseball's Negro National League is formed. It's October 1909 at Southside Park Baseball Stadium in Chicago, 10 years before the death of Eugene Williams. 30 year old black baseball pitcher Andrew Rube Foster curses as the batter connects with his pitch and jets toward first base. Rube's team, the Leland Giants, have a 52 lead in the final inning of the game. It's a familiar position as one of the country's top baseball teams. The Giants are used to winning, but there's no team Rube wants to beat more than today's opponents. The Chicago Cubs won the last two World Series, but Rube and his Giants teammates are unable to compete for that title because of the color of their skin. For more than 20 years, major league Baseball has enforced the color line, an informal ban on black players competing in the country's Top professional league. The only way black Americans can play competitive baseball is in much smaller, black only amateur leagues or one of a handful of integrated minor leagues. But black teams in these leagues face difficulties. White teams have better paying facilities, more sponsorship and bigger crowds. And without these advantages, black baseball teams struggle to pay the bills. Team owners bicker with each other, fighting for the opportunity to play occasional exhibition matches against white teams. Today's game between the Leland Giants and the Chicago Cubs is one of those rare games. But it's also an opportunity for Rube to prove that black players are just as good as the country's top white baseball players and that athletes like him deserve a place in the major leagues. As the Giants throw the ball back from the outfield, two Cubs players who were on base reach home. A third player slides in to score just as he's tagged with a ball, and the umpire calls him safe. But Rube is certain that the players should be out. He confronts the officials, arguing his case. But while Rube and the umpires are distracted, another Cubs player sneaks home. Rube is apoplectic with rage as the umpire declares that the score is now 6:5 to the Cubs. The Cubs go on to win the game, and Rube takes a loss hard. He blames the officials for favoring the white team and fixing the game so it was impossible for the Giants to win. But over the days that follow, Rube decides that rather than fume, he's going to do something about it. He concludes that his team will never succeed as long as it's reliant on money from exhibition games against white teams. Black baseball needs to be better run and self sufficient. Over the next few months, Rube splits with the owner of the Leland Giants and founds a new team that he calls the Chicago American Giants. And when the Chicago Cubs move out of Southside park and into a newly built stadium, Rube makes a deal with a Southside park owner to base the American Giants there. Instead, it gives Rube superior facilities to other black teams, which in turn attracts the best players and more paying spectators. Soon, Rube's American Giants are recognized as the best black team in baseball. And for four years they dominate the opposition, winning three quarters of their games in front of capacity crowds. Such is their success that the American Giants catch the eye of a black businessman who's keen to replicate Rube's model. Charles Taylor buys the Indianapolis ABCs and moves the team to better facilities while paying better wages to attract better players. It's not long before the ABCs become the American Giants primary competition. And over the next few seasons, the American giants and ABCs face off in annual games that black newspapers hype up as championship title matches. But the games often descend into violence. In 1915, a brawl leads to one game being abandoned. The following year, Rube clashes with officials over a disputed ruling and refuses to finish the game. This constant bickering leaves the black baseball community fractured. So to avoid future disputes between the two best black teams, some newspapers call on Railroad, Rube and Charles to agree to an official all black championship series with rules and regulations agreed to in advance. Despite their differences, Rube and Charles will both agree. And the solution they devise won't just improve the championship games, but all of them as the two men will come together in a pact that will lift up black baseball as a whole by creating a new league. It's February 13, 1920, in a YMCA building in Kansas City, Missouri, 10 years after the formation of the Chicago American Giants baseball team. Andrew Rube Foster, the owner of the American Giants, sits around a table with seven other black baseball team owners. Rube has called his fellow bosses here today because he's got an ambitious proposal. Six months ago, the drowning of Eugene Williams in Lake Michigan sparked a race riot in Rube's hometown of Chicago. The riot's underlying cause was the inherent unfairness of racial segregation. But it's made Rube even more determined that the black community should be able to survive on its own and that black only baseball should thrive independently of the white major leagues. Rube's Chicago American Giants have proven proven it's possible for the black community to support a successful and self sufficient baseball team. And now Rube wants more black teams to follow his example. And he's got a plan for them to follow. Rube talks the owners through the structure of a new baseball organization he's calling the Negro National League, or nnl. Under the nnl, eight, all black baseball teams from the Midwest will play multiple games against each other. And the team at the top of the standings at the end of the season will be crowned the NNL championship. Hearing the plan, the other team owners nod their heads in agreement. They've all seen what Rube has achieved with the American Giants and want to replicate that success for themselves. So by the end of the meeting, all present have voted to join the new league. And there's only one man who can run it. Rube accepts their invitation to be the league's president. With Charles Taylor, his old rival from the Indianapolis ABCs, appointed as vice president less than three months later, the first game of the new NNL takes place. But the new league is soon undermined by its own president. Rube can't let go of his famous competitive streak. And other team owners soon complain that Rube has fixed the schedule so his Chicago American Giants get more than their fair share of home games. Their protests only grow when the American Giants finish at the top of the standings and win the first NNL pennant. But despite all the grumblings from the other owners, there's no disguising that Rube's NNL is a success. It's the first all black professional baseball league to complete a full season without folding. Rube's rivals just hope that in the years to come he can learn to be more evenhanded. Those hopes, though, are soon dashed. Just the following year, Rube undermines his own competition yet again. As league president, Rube allows his team to sign the best player from the Detroit Stars. The despite a league rule meant to stop teams poaching each other's players, Rube also comes under fire for arranging another schedule in which the American Giants play more games at home and at better times than their opponents who are forced to spend more money on travel. Thanks to Rube's one sided running of the league, the American Giants win the next two NL pennants. But one of their opponents is fast closing the gap. And in 1923, the Kansas City Monarchs win the first of three consecutive titles. Then in 1926, Rube is nearly killed by a gas leak while in Indianapolis. Recovery is difficult and he begins a slow decline before finally dying in 1930. By then, the Great Depression has taken hold in America. As unemployment and poverty rises, ticket sales in Rube's baseball league fall and revenue for the team slumps. The teams and owners come under increasing financial pressure and in 1931 the NNL folds. But by then, Rube's league has proven that black only baseball can thrive in America. During the 12 years that the league operated, several copycat leagues were formed in other regions of the United States, including the National Southern League and the Eastern Colored League. And two years after the NNL collapses, another black team owner revives the idea. But unlike Rube Foster, Gus Greenlee operates this second national league in a non partisan manner. Under Gus, the schedule doesn't favor any particular team and owners benefit from the more equitable share of gate money. Soon Gus will begin to cooperate rather than compete with rival black leagues too. From 1942, Gus will invite the champion of the new Negro American League to play against the champion of his league in the Negro World Series. But by then, some Major League Baseball teams will be looking at the Black leagues as a potential source of talent, and the long established color line will soon be shattered.
