Editing Rube Foster (section)

==Negro National League==
[[File:Rube Foster 1924.jpg|thumb|Foster at the [[1924 Colored World Series]].]]

In 1920, Foster, Taylor, and the owners of six other midwestern clubs met in the spring to form a professional baseball circuit for African-American teams. Foster, as president, controlled league operations, while remaining owner and manager of the American Giants. He was periodically accused of favoring his own team, especially in matters of scheduling (the Giants in the early years tended to have a disproportionate number of home games) and personnel: Foster seemed able to acquire whatever talent he needed from other clubs, such as [[Jimmie Lyons]], the Detroit Stars' best player in 1920, who was transferred to the American Giants for 1921, or Foster's own younger brother, [[Bill Foster (baseball)|Bill]], who joined the American Giants unwillingly when Rube forced the [[Memphis Red Sox]] to give him up in 1926. His critics believed he had organized the 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. It is also true that when opposing clubs lost money, he was known to help them meet payroll, sometimes out of his own pocket.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Kelly |first1=Matt |title=The Father of Black Baseball |url=https://www.mlb.com/history/negro-leagues/players/rube-foster |website=mlb.com |publisher=MLB Advanced Media, LP. |access-date=26 December 2021}}</ref>

His American Giants won the new league's first three pennants before being overtaken by the [[Kansas City Monarchs]] in 1923. In the same year the [[Hilldale Club]] and [[Bacharach Giants]], the most important eastern clubs, pulled out of an agreement with the NNL and founded their own league, the [[Eastern Colored League]] (ECL). The ECL raided the older circuit for players, Foster's own ace pitcher [[Dave Brown (baseball)|Dave Brown]] among them. Eventually the two leagues reached an agreement to respect one another's contracts and to play a [[Negro League World Series|world series]].

After two years of finishing behind the Monarchs, Foster "cleaned house" in spring 1925, releasing several veterans (including Lyons and pitchers [[Dick Whitworth]] and Tom Williams). On May 26, Foster was nearly asphyxiated by a gas leak in Indianapolis.<ref>{{cite book|last=Lester|first=Larry|date=2012| title=Rube Foster In His Time: On the Field and in the Papers with Black Baseball's Greatest Visionary|publisher=McFarland|location=Jefferson, North Carolina|page=166}}</ref> Though he recovered and returned to his team, his behavior grew erratic from then on.{{citation needed|date=August 2022}} Foster had instituted a split-season format, and his American Giants finished third in both halves.

The year 1926 saw him complete his team's reshaping, leaving only a handful of veterans from the championship squads of 1920 to 1922. The club finished third in the season's first half, but Foster would never finish the second. Over the years, "Foster grew increasingly paranoid. Took to carrying a revolver with him everywhere he went." Suffering from serious delusions, including one where he believed he was about to receive a call to pitch in the World Series, he was institutionalized midway through the 1926 season at an asylum in Kankakee, Illinois.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Nilsson |first1=Ryan |title=Founder of the Negro Leagues was not your average Rube |url=https://chicago.suntimes.com/2020/7/12/21317798/negro-leagues-rube-foster-anniversary |website=Chicago.suntimes.com |date=12 July 2020 |access-date=25 December 2021}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Odzer|first=Tim|title=Rube Foster|url=https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/andrew-rube-foster/|access-date=June 27, 2021|website=Society For American Baseball Research}}</ref>

The American Giants and the NNL lived on—in fact, led by Dave Malarcher, the Giants won the pennant and World Series in both 1926 and 1927—but the league clearly suffered in the absence of Foster's leadership. Foster died in 1930, never having recovered his sanity, and a year later the league he had founded fell apart.

Foster is interred in [[Lincoln Cemetery (Cook County)|Lincoln Cemetery]] in [[Blue Island, Illinois]]. Thousands attended his funeral in [[Bronzeville, Chicago]], including "an overflow crowd of 3,000 people who 'stood in the snow and rain.'<ref name=Rumore>{{Cite news |last=Rumore |first=Kori |date=2021-07-25 |title=As first victim of Chicago's 1919 race riots finally receives a grave marker, here's a look at other notable people buried in Lincoln Cemetery |work=Chicago Tribune |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-lincoln-cemetery-blue-island-notable-graves-20210723-ke7n57ifyfg6pd6akwaz4tsi6a-story.html |access-date=2021-07-25}}</ref> At his funeral, his coffin was closed, according to attendees, "at the usual hour a ballgame ends."