LOVERRO: Gibson takes his rightful place among the all-time greats

Josh Gibson was a celebrated young athlete in Pittsburgh, where his family moved from Buena Vista, Virginia, when he was 12 years old. He was a catcher for a Black amateur team called Gimbels A.C. He later played for a semi-pro team called the Crawford Colored Giants. But the local team he wanted to play for, the high-profile Homestead Grays, had no place for him. They had a catcher, Buck Ewing.

The story goes that the 19-year-old Gibson was in the stands watching a Grays game when Ewing was sidelined with a finger injury. The Grays recruited Gibson right out of the stands, bringing him down to the clubhouse and putting him in a Grays uniform.

That’s how the career of the greatest Negro League hitter and perhaps the greatest hitter in baseball history began. His statue stands outside Nationals Park to commemorate his time in Washington when the Grays called the District home. He is in both the Washington Nationals Ring of Honor and the Pittsburgh Pirates Hall of Fame. Gibson was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972 by the Negro Leagues Committee.

No ballplayer shook up the status quo more than Gibson when MLB announced that the numbers posted by Gibson and other Black players in Negro League competition — when they were banned from the major leagues because of the game’s color barrier — would become an official part of the record books.

The 6-foot-1, 220-pound Gibson is now the all-time batting leader, with a .372 career average, surpassing Ty Cobb’s long-standing mark of .367. His .718 slugging percentage is now the all-time record, passing Babe Ruth’s .690 career record. His career OPS of 1.177 tops baseball’s list now as well, also passing Ruth’s 1.164.

There’s more. Gibson’s .446 season batting average in 1943, when the Grays played most of their home games at Griffith Stadium in the District, is now the all-time record. He is joined by fellow Negro Leaguer Charlie “Chino” Smith, with his .451 average for the 1929 New York Lincoln Giants. The former record holder, Hugh Duffy, is now third with his .440 number.

Anecdotally, Gibson supposedly hit more than 800 home runs. But that number included facing all levels of competition. His home run total against Negro League opponents in 602 games was 166 home runs.

Gibson’s numbers are eye-opening. But to truly define the greatness of this player, you need to listen to the stories of those who saw him play while his greatness was hidden from the major league game.

“I played with Willie Mays and against Hank Aaron,” said fellow Hall of Famer Monte Irvin, who played in both the Negro League and major leagues. “They were tremendous players, but they were no Josh Gibson.”

Pitcher Willie “Sug” Cornelius said Major League Baseball fans missed out on a chance to see a great player. “The American people were denied the right to see a superstar perform, because in the world of stars, you’d have to put Josh in the superstar category,” Cornelius said. “Had he been given the right to participate in the American or National leagues, I’d bet he’d have hit 75 home runs, with his strength and power.”

His home runs were legendary. There are stories that he hit several home runs out of Yankee Stadium, though they were never documented. A teammate of Gibson’s, fellow Hall of Famer Buck Leonard, said he once saw him hit a ball out of the vast Polo Grounds.

There is a plaque at Memorial Field in Belmar, New Jersey, where “the great Josh Gibson hit a legendary 600-foot home run that reached the backyard of the Belmar Post Office” against a local semipro team.

In an interview with historian John Holway, Negro Leaguer Newt Allen said, “The ballparks were too small for him. He could hit to all fields and hit just as hard to right field as he did left field. If he hit to center field, it would be either up against the fence or in the bleachers. He could hit any kind of pitchers.”

Negro League pitcher Dave Barnhill marveled at Gibson’s power in another Holway interview. “Ain’t no man in the world could hit a ball farther or harder than Josh Gibson,” he said. “Every time we left a town, some young kid would say, ‘Hey, see over there? Josh hit one right there.’ And that was about four blocks from the ballpark.”

Gibson’s personal life was filled with tragedy. His first wife Helen died in childbirth in 1930. He died in 1947 at the age of 35, and his cause of death remains in dispute. Some reports had Gibson, who suffered from alcohol abuse, dying of a stroke; others a brain tumor, and some reports cited a drug overdose. A 1945 report in Beisbol Magazine, based in Mexico City, said: “The magnificent colored ballplayer, Josh Gibson, has been confined to a hospital in Puerto Rico in order to find out why he has not been in his right mind.” There were also reports about Gibson being hospitalized numerous times at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in the District.

In his autobiography, “I Was Right on Time,” Negro Leaguer Buck O’Neil said that being passed over for the first player to break baseball’s color line broke Gibson’s heart. “By the time Jackie was signed, it was too late for Josh,” O’Neil wrote. “He never got over the fact that he didn’t get a chance 10 years earlier, when he was the best hitter in the game.”

⦁ This is the first in an occasional series of columns spotlighting Negro League ballplayers recently added to the Major League Baseball record books. Catch Thom Loverro on The Kevin Sheehan Show podcast.