Josh Gibson

Baseball Player

• Born: December 21, 1911
• Place of Birth: Buena Vista, Georgia
• Died: January 20, 1947
• Place of Death: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Baseball player Josh Gibson is widely considered one of the greatest hitters of all time. He became a major star of the Negro Leagues, primarily playing for the Homestead Grays and the Pittsburgh Crawfords in the 1930s and 40s. After Negro Leagues statistics were incorporated into Major League Baseball (MLB) records, Gibson was recognized as the all-time leader in numerous statistical categories, including career batting average, career slugging percentage, and single-season batting average.

Early Life

Joshua Gibson was born December 21, 1911, in Buena Vista, Georgia, a small town near Atlanta. He was the first of three children of Mark and Nancy Gibson. Life in the South during the days of segregation was often difficult for Black families like the Gibsons. Mr. Gibson had difficulty providing for his family in rural Georgia and decided to seek work in the industrial North. Early in 1924, he relocated his family to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he was employed in a steel mill as a laborer.

Gibson's education began in Georgia and continued through the ninth grade at a vocational school in Pittsburgh, where he studied to become an electrician. As a youth, Josh played pickup baseball games with neighborhood boys. He loved baseball and scoured the city in search of games.

The Road to Excellence

At the age of sixteen, Gibson worked in a manufacturing plant and, in his spare time, played catcher for an all-Black amateur team in Pittsburgh. By that time he was already over 6 feet tall and 215 pounds with an athletic muscular build. For the next two years, he played for a number of semiprofessional teams around Pittsburgh, where his power at the plate became well known and feared by opposing pitchers.

In July 1930, the Homestead Grays, a Negro League team, were playing the Negro National League champions, the Kansas City Monarchs, in a night game at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Gibson began the game as a fan in the stands. An event was about to occur, however, that affected his life as well as baseball for years to come. An injury to the Grays’ regular catcher occurred during the game. The team's coach, future Baseball Hall of Fame inductee William “Judy” Johnson, summoned Gibson out of the stands and asked if he would catch. Elated, Gibson ran to the clubhouse to get a uniform and his career as a professional ballplayer began.

Professional Baseball Career

Gibson practiced hard to become a good defensive catcher. He developed a strong, accurate throw and displayed speed rarely seen by someone his size. But although he became an excellent catcher, it was hitting for which he would be remembered. He consistently hit for both high average and prodigious power, earning a reputation as one of the best home-run hitters ever. In 1931, for example, he was credited with hitting 75 home runs for the Homestead Grays as they barnstormed across the region. (Black baseball teams frequently played exhibition games and other informal games against a wide array of competitors, in addition to official league play. Along with limited record keeping overall, this contributed to notably inconsistent and incomplete statistics for Negro League players.)

In 1932 and 1933, Gibson continued to display his power with the Grays, and his legend continued to grow. In 1934, he joined another Negro League team, the Pittsburgh Crawfords. There he played alongside other league stars including future National Baseball Hall of Fame members James “Cool Papa” Bell, Oscar Charleston, Judy Johnson, and Satchel Paige. Many fans and baseball historians would later consider this team one of the greatest of all time.

Gibson continued to build his reputation as one of the most famous baseball players in the world. He also became the second-highest-paid player in the Negro Leagues, behind Paige. In the early 1940s, he reportedly made nearly $1,200 a month. Legends began to grow around his talent, including numerous anecdotal reports of especially prodigious home runs. For example, he was credited with hitting the longest home run ever in Yankee Stadium. The ball struck the top of the stadium, 580 feet from home plate. This long-ball power earned Josh the nickname the “Black Babe Ruth”—although some fans instead called superstar Babe Ruth "the white Josh Gibson."

In 1937, Gibson rejoined the Homestead Grays and teamed up with another great hitter, Walter “Buck” Leonard, another future Hall of Famer. By this time the Grays were playing home games at Griffith Stadium in Washington, DC. Gibson and Leonard became known as the “Thunder Twins” and combined to become the most feared hitters in the history of the Negro Leagues. They were reportedly once called into the office of Clark Griffith, the owner of the Major League Baseball (MLB) team the Washington Senators, to explore the possibility of breaking the so-called color barrier in professional baseball. Nothing ever came of it, however. Gibson continued his legendary career with the Homestead Grays until 1946, with a brief stay in the Mexican League in 1940–41.

In January 1943, Gibson fell into a coma that lasted for one day. He had a brain tumor, but refused to have doctors operate on him, fearing the worst. He continued to play ball, posting some of his greatest seasons in the mid-1940s. He helped the Grays win the Negro World Series in 1943 and 1944, and the team won the Negro National League II pennant in 1945 as well. However, on January 20, 1947, at his home in Pittsburgh, Gibson suffered a stroke and died at the age of thirty-five, only a few months before Jackie Robinson ended the MLB color barrier.

Impact

In 1972, Gibson was elected posthumously into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Along with Paige and Leonard, he was one of the first players inducted based on their Negro League careers. Due to the issues with Negro League statistics, he was credited at the time with nearly 800 career home runs, as well as Negro National League batting titles in 1936–38 and 1942–45.

In 2024, the MLB officially added Negro League statistics (from regular league play, not including exhibition games and other independent appearances) to its historical records. As a result, Gibson was officially recognized as the major-league record holder in several statistical categories. Perhaps most notably, he placed number-one in career batting average (.372, surpassing Ty Cobb's .363), career slugging percentage (.718; surpassing Babe Ruth's .690), and career on-base percentage plus slugging (OPS)(1.177; surpassing Ruth's 1.164). He also took over the single-season records for batting average (.466 in 1943), slugging (.974 in 1937), on-base percentage (.564 in 1943), and OPS (1.474 in 1937). Gibson ranked near the top of the all-time leaderboard in numerous other categories as well, reflecting his well-earned reputation as one of baseball's most legendary stars.

Bibliography

Brashler, William. Josh Gibson: A Life in the Negro Leagues. I. R. Dee, 2000.

James, Bill. The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract. Free Press, 2003.

"Josh Gibson." Baseball Reference, www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/gibsojo99.shtml. Accessed 25 June 2024.

"Josh Gibson." National Baseball Hall of Fame, baseballhall.org/hall-of-famers/gibson-josh. Accessed 25 June 2024.

Kirwin, Bill. Out of the Shadows: African American Baseball from the Cuban Giants to Jackie Robinson. University of Nebraska Press, 2005.

Murphy, Brian. "Reality of Josh Gibson's Incredible Talent Transcends Even His Legend." MLB, 29 May 2024, www.mlb.com/news/josh-gibson-s-stats-talent-transcend-even-his-own-legend. Accessed 25 June 2024.

Ribowsky, Mark. Josh Gibson: The Power and the Darkness. University of Illinois Press, 2004.