Chicago American Giants · Nashville, Tennessee · 1913

The greatest Negro ball team in the world

In September 1913 the Nashville Globe announced Rube Foster's American Giants of Chicago, champions of the world, against all star teams of the Capital City League: three days at Athletic Park, 25 cents to everybody. The sporting page put it plainly. The greatest aggregation of colored ball players in America, which is to say the greatest Negro ball team in the world.

The Nashville Globe of September 12, 1913 gave over a full column to one word in wood type: BASEBALL. Underneath it, the details. The “AMERICAN GIANTS OF CHICAGO, RUBE FOSTER’S Great Aggregation of NEGRO BALL PLAYERS, CHAMPIONS OF THE WORLD,” against “ALL STAR TEAMS OF THE CAPITAL CITY LEAGUE.” Athletic Park, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, September 15, 16, 17. “SEE THESE GAMES. ADMISSION 25c TO EVERYBODY. GAME CALLED, 3:00 P.M.”

The Sporting News column next to the ad made the case in prose. Foster’s club “is the greatest aggregation of colored ball players in America today which is to say it is the greatest Negro ball team in the world,” and Foster himself “is one of the brainiest men in the business, as shown by his success in past years.” Nashville fans got a hometown angle too: the Giants’ catcher Petway was “an old Nashville boy who had his first experience on the lots of Nashville,” said to be “one of the best catchers in baseball regardless of color.” History agrees with the Globe on both counts.

Against this club the City League would place “the best new team that can be picked,” and the paper was honest about the arithmetic: “The odds are against the city boys as to the result of the games but all may depend on seeing a good game of base ball played in an orderly manner.” Come out anyway, it urged, and “witness three days of the finest sport ever witnessed in Nashville.” Seven years later Foster would sit down in Kansas City and turn all that brains into a league.