Voices from the Great Black Baseball Leagues by John Holway

Author:John Holway
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780486136479
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2012-10-11T16:00:00+00:00

Double Duty Radcliffe (left) with Chicago American Giants manager Candy Jim Taylor (right) in the Memphis Red Sox park, opening day 1939. (Photo courtesy of Phil Dixon).

Bill Foster at the American Giants’ park, former home of the 1906 “Hitless Wonder” White Sox.

Chapter 10

BILL FOSTER

Willie Foster was the Cy Young of the Negro leagues. The lanky left-handed younger brother of league pioneer Rube Foster, won 138 lifetime victories, tops among all pitchers. Lefty Andy Cooper is second with 123 and Satchel Paige third at 122.

In 1927 Big Bill posted a record of 21-3 to lead the Chicago American Giants to the black world championship. Only two men, Ray Brown and Slim Jones, have ever won more in a single year. Bill leads all pitchers, including Paige, in lifetime shutouts, and ranks second to Satchel in strikeouts. And if Foster hadn’t retired at the age of 33 in the midst of the Depression, he would have rung up even higher numbers.

Big Bill was a money pitcher. His 15 victories in post-season play are more than any man in blackball annals.

His manager, Dave Malarcher, says Bill was a carbon copy of his brother on the pitching mound. Pictures of the two, side-by-side, show them both with identical moves—ball held behind the head—just before they take their stride.

“Bill Foster was my star pitcher, the greatest pitcher of our time, not even barring Satchel,” declares Malarcher. “Rube taught him, I didn’t teach him. The art of pitching he learned from Rube.”

Many a black veteran—outfielder Nat Rogers is one —insists that Foster was better than Satchel Paige, and the long pitching rivalry between these two was one of the most exciting in black ball annals.

Perhaps the most exciting rivalry in the Negro leagues was Foster against Paige, the best black left-hander against the best righty. In one double-header, Rogers remembers, Satchel was scheduled to pitch the first game against Foster but pulled out at the last minute. Bill pitched anyway and won. “When they announced Satchel to pitch the second game, Bill said, ‘Shucks, give me that ball. I want to beat him.’ When the game ended, Bill had ’em 6–2.”

After retiring from baseball, Bill Foster moved to North Carolina as an insurance agent. He eventually settled in Lorman, Mississippi, not far from Charles Evers’ Fayette, where he coached baseball and served as dean of men. That’s where I met him in 1970, a tall, lean man well over six feet, with the hard stomach of a man still physically active, and sunken eye sockets and cheeks that gave him almost a death’s-head look. He spoke eloquently, thoughtfully, in a deep baritone, struggling to summon back to memory a chapter in history too long neglected.

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