josh gibson

A lot has been written about Alex Rodriguez his involvement with steroids. Many have put in their two cents as to what implications this has on the legacy of Rodriguez and baseball itself. It is truly dark days ahead for baseball and one of its most revered players, but this problem is not the first baseball has overcome.

Years ago baseball was mired in even more bone chilling controversy. That of the color barrier. Until 1947 black baseball players were kept out of major league baseball. Until Jackie Robinson's bravery many African-Americans played in separate and unequal conditions. Until the Brooklyn Dodgers and Branch Rickey there were victims of racism far more cheated than any clean modern baseball player, like Roy Oswalt. One of these was Josh Gibson.

Instead of writing about Alex Rodriguez or steroids or Roy Oswalt or even the game's future, I'd like to share with you a bit of the game's past. A bit of history that may put our current events into perspective. This is the story of Josh Gibson:

The stage was set. It was the sixth game of a nine-game playoff for the Negro League Championship in 1930 being played in Yankee Stadium. The Homestead Grays were leading the series three games to two over the New York Lincoln Giants. “Broadway” Connie Rector, who had relieved starter, Red Farrell, was on the mound for the Giants. Earlier in the game Giants’ shortstop Bill Yancey had begged Farrell not to let the Gray’s young catcher hit the ball on the ground. “What are you afraid of?" Farrell asked. "You're 90 feet away; I'm only 60 feet away!” (5). When the Gray’s catcher came up to bat the first time Yancey was playing left field. Rector’s pitching arsenal consisted of three basic pitches, all of which were change-ups. They ranged from slow to crawlingly slow. Rector, the previous year, had won 20 games and lost only two. He had been brought in to face the feared catcher of the Grays. The catcher launched a shot that teammate, Judy Johnson, said cleared the entire stadium. Two Giants players, who may have had better looks at the home run, said it missed clearing the stadium by what looked like only two feet. Whether the home run went out of “The House That Ruth Built” or not, it was still considered the longest home run in Yankee Stadium’s history at an estimated length of 580 feet from home plate. The young catcher’s name was Josh Gibson.

Gibson played in the Negro Leagues from 1930 to his death in 1947 at the age of 36. The Negro Leagues were where black players could play ball in the pre-integrated era of baseball history. The Negro Leagues Committee elected Gibson to Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame in 1972. He played along side Negro League greats who are also now enshrined in the Hall of Fame, like Satchel Paige, Oscar Charleston, Buck Leonard, Cool Papa Bell, and Smokey Joe Williams. During the depression age, black ballplayers would pass around a hat at games to pay for gas to get to the next game. The leftovers would be shared by the team. Negro League teams would do what is known as barn storming. They would go from town to town and play anyone who could field a team. Sometimes these teams would consist of white major leaguers. Records were poorly kept for these players, and all of the information about them comes from the players who are still alive to tell their stories. One such story is Josh Gibson’s. Gibson may have been the greatest home run hitter in the history of baseball. He is often referred to as the “black Babe Ruth”.

Babe Ruth is widely considered the greatest baseball player of all-time. Ruth’s greatest attribute in his baseball repertoire was hitting majestic, towering home runs that awed the crowd. For decades, Ruth held both the single season and career home run records, both of which have since been surpassed. Babe Ruth was the star of the most famous team in baseball history, the New York Yankees. Yankee Stadium is nicknamed “The House That Ruth Built”. Ruth was the first of the home run hitters, and he was the only one for many years. Well, at least in the major leagues.

Josh Gibson hit that home run in September of 1930; farther than any Ruth ever did in the stadium he built. Gibson seemed as though he was a man among boys, because of the way he hit the ball. Unfortunately, the commissioner of baseball at the time, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, would only let the “boys” who played against Gibson be black, and thus shrouding Gibson’s statistics in mystery and doubt. Had Gibson played in the major leagues, he may have broken Ruth’s single season home run record in around a decade. Had he played in the major leagues, Josh Gibson may now be considered one of the greatest, if not the greatest, baseball players of all-time.

Babe Ruth’s single season home run record was 60 in 1927. This is the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s account of that day:

On September 30th, in the second to last game of the season, New York and Washington were tied 2-2 as the Yankees came to bat in the bottom of the eighth. With Yankee Mark Koenig on third, Ruth stepped in against Washington's southpaw hurler, Tom Zachary. Ruth sent a drive into the right field stands, putting the Yanks ahead by two and setting a new standard with 60 home runs in a single season. In what would be his final major league appearance, Hall-of-Famer Walter Johnson pinch-hit for Zachary in the bottom of the ninth, but the future Hall-of-Famer failed to reach base and the Yankees garnered their 109th victory of 1927. The next day, while the Yanks won the final game of their much-celebrated season of 1927, Ruth was held homerless and thus the single-season mark remained at 60 (3).

This was the jewel in Babe Ruth’s crown atop the kingdom of baseball, until Roger Maris broke the record with 61 home runs in 1961. Ruth’s record stood for 34 years, making it all the more prestigious. However, according to Washington D.C. editor, Allan R. Andrews, and confirmed by Tom Singer of MLB.com, Josh Gibson hit 84 home runs in 1936 in the Negro National League. This would have obliterated Ruth’s record within 11 years, leaving Ruth only a memory in the shadow of Josh Gibson’s legacy.

Josh Gibson was a physical marvel. Not only did he hit “Ruthian home runs”, but he was a good fielder as well. In an article written by ESPN.com’s Rob Neyer, about the greatest catchers of all-time, in a side note he stated, “While remembering, in the backs of our minds, that Josh Gibson was both an awesome power hitter and a good fielder in the Negro Leagues” (6). This is an amazing feat, because the position of catcher is not ordinarily where both of these skills are featured. For instance, in current Major League Baseball (circa: 2001), the two best catchers are Ivan Rodriguez and Mike Piazza; Rodriguez, of the defensive catching ilk, and Piazza, a pure slugger. Neyer says of the two contemporary catchers:

And finally, what of the current crop? As great as Ivan Rodriguez is, I don't see him breaking into the top five, all-time. Not unless he adds ‘hitting more home runs’ to his long list of other skills. Yes, Pudgy's got the greatest arm we've seen. But there's more to catching than throwing, my friends. And Piazza? He is, quite simply, on track to be the best-hitting catcher of all time. Remember that RC/27 chart from above? Piazza blows everybody away, with a 1.73 ratio. So should he actually play the position for another five or six years, he has to be considered a candidate for Greatest Ever. I'll make you a deal, too...if and when that happens, then we'll talk about Mr. Mike's glove (6).

Gibson’s hall of fame teammate, Cool Papa Bell said this of Gibson’s fielding prowess: “[He] was a good catcher, had a strong arm and was a good handler of pitchers but had difficulty on pop fouls” (7). His troubles locating pop fouls not withstanding, all of these attributes would have made him a very good fielder, and a very well rounded baseball player.

His baseball abilities, however, did not help him break the Major League Baseball color barrier, which was broken by Jackie Robinson only three months after Gibson’s death. Gibson was widely considered the best the Negro Leagues had to offer. Hall of Fame pitcher, and the greatest right handed pitcher of all-time according to Neyer’s calculations, Walter Johnson said this of Gibson: “There is a catcher that any big-league club would like to buy….His name is Gibson...he can do anything. He hits the ball a mile. And he catches so easy he might as well be in a rocking chair. Throws like a rifle...Too bad this Gibson is a colored fellow” (9). Until Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson to be the first black major leaguer, no major league front office wanted to be the first to do so. Washington Senator’s owner, Clark Griffith, who saw Gibson and teammate Buck Leonard play in his team’s stadium, once called the two greats into his office. He asked them if they thought they could make it in the big leagues, they answered positively. Unfortunately Griffith’s bottom line was this, “Nobody wants to be the first. That’s the problem” (4). To this day, some still believe Gibson died of a broken heart when he was continually not allowed to play in the big leagues.

One criticism of Gibson was that Negro League records are more often than not unreliable. This is not a criticism of his abilities as a baseball player, which has never been disputed by anyone. This is a knock against Gibson’s claims to Babe Ruth’s baseball throne. Ruth’s place is safe, as baseball’s greatest player, because of Gibson’s exclusion from Major League Baseball. However, baseball lovers have to salivate at the possibilities a Ruth and Gibson home run derby would have had.

Another criticism of Gibson is that the competition he faced in the Negro Leagues was not of the caliber of the major leagues. This is a racist argument. Saying that only white ballplayers were good competition in the 1920’s and 30’s is ridiculous. Satchel Paige, elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971, was one of the greatest pitchers in the Negro Leagues; some think he is the greatest ever and faced the same racial historical problems as Gibson. Also Gibson “barnstormed” against some hall of fame major leaguers, like Dizzy Dean as well as 60 recorded at-bats against major league pitching, in which Gibson batted .426.

Josh Gibson was one of the greatest players in Negro League history. The only thing standing in Gibson’s path to baseball royalty was the color of his skin. His National Baseball Hall of Fame plaque says that he hit around 800 home runs in his career, and his 84 home runs in 1936, would have put his plaque at least next to Ruth as kings of baseball. Unlike the Bambino, Gibson had no nicknames. He was a stoic, business-like ballplayer. He stood tall and never even spoke out against the racial barrier that kept him from immortality. Struck with bouts of depression that may have been caused by this barrier, his only release was pounding little white baseballs miles away. When Gibson was elected into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame on Saturday, February 8, 2003, James A. Riley, Director of Research at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, said: “Josh Gibson is the greatest catcher in the history of baseball. He played at a time when baseball was separated by a color line. Josh was called the ‘Black Babe Ruth’ and like the Babe, he hit long, towering, majestic home runs. His power was legendary. You can go to any ballpark in the hemisphere where Josh played and someone will point to the most distant part of the park and say, ‘Josh hit one out there’” (4). Maybe the next time Barry Bonds or Sammy Sosa hits a home run the announcer should cry, “Wow, that was a Gibsonian blast!”

Bibliography:
1. Andrews, Allen R. “The Apocryphal Home-Run Hitter”. The American Reporter. http://www.toad.net/~andrews/josh.html. Online Meanderings '99. September 24, 1998.
2. Baseballhalloffame.org. “Josh Gibson”. http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/hofers_and_honorees/hofer_bios/gibson_josh.htm. National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc. (No date).
3. Baseballhalloffame.org. “A Short History of the Single-Season Home Run Record”. http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/exhibits/online%5Fexhibits/ss%5Fhome%5Frun/ruth_4.htm. National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc. 2000.
4. Blackbaseball.com. “Josh Gibson Inducted into Georgia Sports Hall of Fame”. http://www.blackbaseball.com/updates/news.htm. TK Publishers & Blackbaseball.com. 1998-2002.
5. Holway, John B. “Great Moments in Blackball History: Gibson’s Yankee Stadium Blow”. Baseballguru.com. http://baseballguru.com/jholway/analysisjholway01.html. Baseballguru.com. (No date).
6. Neyer, Rob. “The Men in the Masks”. ESPN.com. http://members.tripod.com/bb_catchers/catchers/neyer.htm. Chuck Rosciam. 1997-2003.
7. Schwartz, Larry. “No Joshing About Gibson’s Talents”. ESPN.com. http://espn.go.com/sportscentury/features/00016050.html. ESPN Internet Ventures. 2003.
8. Singer, Tom. “Powerful Bat: Gibson the Best Home Run Hitter in Negro Leagues”. MLB.com. http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/mlb/history/mlb_negro_leagues_profile.jsp?player=gibson_josh. MLB Advanced Media, L.P. 2003.
9. Wichterman, Larry. “Josh Gibson: Baseball Superstar”. Pennsylvania Hall of Fame. http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/4547/gibson.html. Larry Wichterman. 2003.