Josh Gibson

File:Gibsonj.jpg

Josh Gibson

Joshua Gibson (December 21, 1911 in Buena Vista, Georgia - January 20, 1947 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) was a catcher for the Homestead Grays and later the Pittsburgh Crawfords in baseball's Negro Leagues.

Standing 6-foot-1 and weighing 215 pounds at the peak of his career, Gibson is widely considered among the very best power hitters in baseball history, but never played in Major League Baseball as racial segregation excluded African-Americans during his lifetime. He is a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, elected in 1972.

Template:MLB HoF He has been credited with as many as 84 homers in one season. His Baseball Hall of Fame plaque says he hit "almost 800" homers in his 17-year career. His lifetime batting average was higher than .350, with other sources putting it as high as .384, the best in Negro League history. It was reported that he won nine home-run titles and four batting championships playing for the Crawfords and the Homestead Grays. In two seasons in the late 1930s, it was written that not only did he hit higher than .400, but his slugging percentage was above 1.000. The Sporting News of June 3, 1967 credits Gibson with a home run in a Negro League game at Yankee Stadium that struck two feet from the top of the wall circling the center field bleachers, about 580 feet from home plate. Although it has never been conclusively proven, Chicago American Giants infielder Jack Marshall said Gibson slugged one over the third deck next to the left field bullpen in 1934 for the only fair ball hit out of the House That Ruth Built.

Due to the color line, the Negro Leagues operated mostly "under the radar." This fact has made statistical accuracy difficult to bear out. But it has also led to various amusing and unverifiable "Tall Tales" about immortals such as Gibson. A good example: In the last of the ninth at Pittsburgh, down a run, with a runner on base and two outs, Gibson hits one high and deep, so far into the twilight sky that it disappears from sight, apparently winning the game. The next day, the same two teams are playing again, now in Washington. Just as the teams have positioned themselves on the field, a ball comes falling out of the sky and a Washington outfielder grabs it. The umpire yells to Gibson, "You're out! In Pittsburgh, yesterday!"

Gibson died of a stroke at age 35 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, just three months before Jackie Robinson became the first black player in modern major league history. The stroke is generally believed to be linked to drug problems that plagued his later years.

Gibson is buried in the Allegheny Cemetery in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Lawrenceville.

In 1996, Gibson was played by Mykelti Williamson in the made-for-cable film Soul of the Game, which also starred Delroy Lindo as Satchel Paige, Blair Underwood as Jackie Robinson, Edward Herrmann as Branch Rickey and Jerry Hardin as Commissioner Happy Chandler.

In 1999, he ranked 18th on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, the highest-ranking of five players to have played all or most of their careers in the Negro Leagues. (The others were Paige, Buck Leonard, Cool Papa Bell and Oscar Charleston.) That same year, he was nominated as a finalist for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.

See also

• List of notable brain tumor patients
• Leones de Escogido

References

• William Brashler. Josh Gibson: a Life in the Negro Leagues. Harper & Row, 1978.

External links

• Baseball Hall of Fame
• Josh Gibson page at Pace University