Foster’s strategy defined Negro Leagues

Written by: Bruce Markusen

So have you heard the one about the team that laid down 11 consecutive bunts in a game? That sounds like something out of the playbook of an old school manager like Gene Mauch or Billy Martin. Mauch, in particular, loved to call for the sacrifice bunt, even early in games. Doing so 11 times in a row might have given him an unusual degree of satisfaction bordering on delight.

Well, Mauch never did orchestrate such a bunting marathon. Nor did Martin. As a matter of fact, it’s not exactly certain that the cascade of 11 straight bunts ever did occur, but it does appear that something close to it took place in a Negro Leagues game more than a century ago. And it was all done under the direction of Hall of Famer Rube Foster, the founder of the Negro Leagues who was managing the Chicago American Giants at the time.

The game in question took place in June of 1921 at Washington Park in Indianapolis, where the American Giants were taking on the Indianapolis ABCs. Some of the details remain sketchy, largely because no official box score has ever been located for the game, but reports in the Chicago Defender and Chicago Daily Tribune do provide a basic framework for what occurred. According to the two newspapers, the ABCs were routing the American Giants, 10-0, at the end of seven innings. Foster, who loved the bunt as a strategic weapon, decided to use this important piece of “small ball” to get back into the game.

Here's where the story becomes a bit grainy. Some reports indicate that Chicago executed 11 consecutive bunts, thereby fitting the legend. Other reports indicated that it was only six consecutive bunts, all suicide squeeze plays taking place with runners on third base.

In whatever way they did it, the American Giants pulled off a remarkable rally. They scored nine runs in the top of the eighth inning to draw within a run. And then after the ABCs countered with eight runs of their own in the bottom half of the inning to make it 18-9, the Giants somehow mustered up another massive rally in the ninth, this time scoring nine runs to match the ABCs.

With the game now knotted at 18-18, the ABCs needed to score only a single run in the bottom of the ninth. They couldn’t do it, as their offense suddenly turned cold.

In the meantime, darkness was descending on Washington Park. Like all of the Negro Leagues ballparks at the time, the stadium had no lights at all. (Night baseball would not come to the Negro Leagues until the 1930s, when the Kansas City Monarchs spearheaded the innovation.) With the score still tied at the end of regulation, the umpires ruled that it was too dark to continue play. The arbiters called the game, declaring it a tie at 18-18, thus infuriating the fans at Washington Park.

So how exactly did the American Giants manage to salvage the tie? They didn’t score all of their 18 runs on bunts; eight of the runs came home on a pair of grand slams. (Earl Weaver would have liked that.) That left a balance of 10 runs, all coming as the direct result of bunt plays.

While it does seem remarkable that a team would rely so heavily on the bunt in staging a comeback, it’s not surprising that the strategy came from the mind of Foster. As a manager, Foster emphasized the importance of fundamental play, including the ability to advance runners by putting the ball into play. Foster loved a style of play that emphasized speed, hitting to the opposite field, and bunting, both the sacrifice bunt and bunting for a hit.

In an article for the Society for American Baseball Research, well-respected Negro Leagues historian Jerry Malloy described Foster’s approach from the dugout.

“As a manager, Foster’s style was ruthlessly aggressive. He built his attack around relentless speed and hustle. He consistently defeated teams that hit for higher averages or more power by using bold base running. He was an exponent of the hit-and-run bunt, wherein a fast base runner would advance two bases on a bunt play, usually going from first to third, but often scoring from second base. All of Foster’s players, even his rare power hitters, such as the Cuban Cristóbal Torriente, were expected to be excellent bunters.”

Foster would not accept the excuse that great hitters did not need to learn how to bunt; it was a skill that was regarded as mandatory, without exception. In order to ensure that his hitters mastered the art of bunting, Foster used a special bunting drill, in which each player had to place a bunt into Foster’s hat, regardless of where it was placed on the field.

Simply put, Foster believed that bunting led to winning games. That’s exactly what happened in that 1921 game against Indianapolis. Regardless of the exact number of bunts the American Giants executed that day, it’s safe to say that nothing like this will happen in today’s game – or in the foreseeable future. In an age when statistical analysis tends to frown upon the benefits of the sacrifice bunt, the idea of a bunting extravaganza would seem far-fetched. The closest occurrence to it can be found in a game in 2015, when the Arizona Diamondbacks went a little bunt-happy and laid down three consecutive bunts. But that’s still well short of what Rube Foster and his Chicago American Giants did over 100 years ago.

To the chagrin of some, the almighty bunt will likely never be so exalted again.

Bruce Markusen is the manager of digital and outreach learning at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum

Foster’s strategy defined Negro Leagues

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