Remembering Hall Of Famer Josh Gibson, Born 111 Years Ago Today
Today, on the anniversary of his birth, we remember Josh Gibson, a Negro League star and one of the most legendary baseball players of all time.
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Pregame Pepper
Did you know…
. . . Though some of his player statistics are not officially on the record, based on his officially recognized stats, Josh Gibson led the Negro National League in home runs 11 times out of his 12 full seasons in the league. Over those 12 years, he also led the league in RBIs seven times, on-base percentage six times, slugging nine times, and runs scored five times, while also being selected to 12 All-Star Games (for part of this stretch, two were held per season).
. . . Gibson’s rate of a homer every 13.1 at-bats in his Negro League career would rank behind only Ruth, Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds on the all-time MLB list.
. . . Among Gibson’s many storied teammates over the years were fellow Negro League legends and Hall of Famers Buck Leonard and Satchel Paige. In 1999, Gibson was posthumously honored on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players as the 18th best baseball player of all time, the highest-ranking of five Negro League players. He was joined by Paige, Leonard, Cool Papa Bell, and Oscar Charleston on this esteemed list.
Leading Off
Born On This Day: Josh Gibson
By W. H. Johnson
It is a truly American story, one that ages well as the time passes. 111 years ago today, in a humble, backwater farming community in southwest Georgia, Joshua Gibson was born. Not quite the nativity setting embodied in the holiday season, but in his own small way, Gibson’s baseball excellence helped push the segregated baseball leagues to allow Black players on the field, and in so doing helped propel an entire nation forward in the recognition of basic human dignity.
Now that Major League Baseball recognizes seven of the early “Negro Leagues,” each operated during the years 1920-1948, as Major Leagues, it has accepted their statistical records as well. His career numbers are already somewhat common knowledge. Now, with the acceptance of the Negro League statistics, the greatness of Josh Gibson is formally ensconced in the figurative halls of baseball immortality. The (formerly white) Major Leagues have enjoyed a long tenure of controlled and well-established statistical record keeping. In the various Negro Leagues, that did not exist, but due to the legion of testimony and myth that has grown up around Gibson, it is impossible to conclude anything other than that he was, by any measure, one of the greatest players in the history of the game.
There are stories of his hitting that are colored with that tinge of myth. In June 1967, 30 years after the fact, a column in The Sporting News credited Gibson with a drive in a Negro League game that hit just two feet from the top of the wall circling the bleachers at old Yankee Stadium, almost 600 feet from home plate in the original park. The paper noted that “Gibson … hit the escarpments in front of the 161st Street elevated railway, about 580 feet from home plate. It has been estimated that if the drive would have been two feet higher, it would have sailed out of the park and travelled some 700 feet.”
It is an unimaginable blast, yet it carried sufficient credibility that The Sporting News published the account three decades later. Still, mere numbers do not tell Gibson’s story, and his place in the pantheon of baseball greats does not need the spreadsheet to prove the obvious.
Word of his power inevitably reached fellow Hall of Famer Judy Johnson. “I had never seen him play,” said Johnson, remembering his thoughts at the time, “but we had heard so much about him. Every time you’d look at the paper you’d see where he hit a ball 400 feet, 500 feet.”
There are debates about Gibson’s proficiency as a catcher. Some, like Roy Campanella, posited that Gibson was in the class of the immortal Biz Mackey, while others felt that while the slugger was more than competent behind the plate, it was mostly his bat that was irreplaceable. Regardless, Gibson’s decade between 1935 and 1945 was largely lived on baseball diamonds in places ranging from Pennsylvania to the Dominican Republic to Mexico to Venezuela to Puerto Rico, and even a few trips through Cuba. He built his legend in front of hundreds of thousands of spectators and fans across the western baseball world.
Sadly, Gibson’s death came too soon. A few years after a 1943 seizure, Gibson’s headaches and the erratic behavior, along with his weight, began to increase as his on-field production ebbed. Still, he helped lead Homestead to a Negro National League pennant in 1945, batting .372 that season, and in 1946, reportedly bashed a 440-foot home run at Yankee Stadium, a 457-foot blow in Pittsburgh, a 500-foot shot at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis, and one that cleared the roof at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. Even at the end, he was the best hitter in the universe of Black baseball.
On Jan. 20, 1947, in the wee hours of the morning, Gibson collapsed and soon passed away. Following his death, he lay in state at the funeral home for three days, and then for three more days at the home of his mother-in-law. His funeral was held at Macedonia Baptist church and, according to some accounts, people lined up for more than a half-mile to pay final respects.
Gibson’s National Baseball Hall of Fame plaque credits him with “almost 800 homers” in a 17-year career, but it is the testimony of his peers that truly underscores Josh Gibson’s prowess.
“I played with Willie Mays and against Hank Aaron,” said Monte Irvin. “They were tremendous players but they were no Josh Gibson.”
Gibson is officially credited with 195 home runs and a .361 batting average over his 16-year Negro League career. Unofficially, he may have homered close to 900 times in various settings, although many were struck against lesser-qualified barnstorming pitchers as opposed to big league competition. Gibson was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1972, part of the inaugural induction of former Negro Leagues stars. He was, truly, worthy of the honor.
Some in the media, and historians since, have occasionally tried to portray Gibson as a martyr of segregated baseball, a big man who died of a broken heart at not getting to play in the integrated Major Leagues, but that would seem to diminish the contributions of the entire cadre of Negro League players. Gibson’s son, Josh Jr., said, “When I hear that stuff about how my father died of a broken heart, that pisses me off. Cause that wasn’t my father. He was the last guy to brood about something he couldn’t do nothin’ about.”
IBWAA member W.H. “Bill” Johnson has contributed to SABR’s Biography Project, written extensively on baseball history, and presented papers at related conferences. Bill and his wife Chris currently reside in Georgia. He can be contacted on Twitter: @BaseballStoic