With all the intense record keeping done in professional baseball, I always find it saddening that better, if not more accurate records were never kept in the Negro Leagues. In a lot of instances, great players were touted not so much by statistics but by legends propounded by their peers and fellow teammates. Had better record keeping been the norm, then perhaps we would have seen that the greatest players were truly never in the majors. Such was the case with Josh Gibson.
Several years ago, I was fortunate enough to see a movie entitled the “Soul of the Game” about some of the greats that played in the Negro Leagues prior to Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in 1947. The movie focused on three main characters — Satchel Paige, Jackie Robinson, and Josh Gibson — as they competed to be the first Afro-American in Major League Baseball. Robinson who was always considered outspoken in his beliefs about equal rights was often criticized for his views, and was even labeled an “Uncle Tom” by some of his envious cohorts when he made the jump to pro ball.
Satchel Paige also went on to enjoy some time in the big leagues. Paige wandered around in the Negro Leagues until he got the call the year after Robinson did and went to Cleveland to pitch for the 1948-49 seasons, then the St. Louis Browns (1951-53), and when he was 59 years old Charles Finley signed him to pitch one game for the Athletics in 1965.
Sadly, for Josh Gibson, he never got that opportunity to play professional baseball. I have on numerous occasions debated Gibson’s impressive talents and presence in the game with other sports junkies and writers like myself who have both agreed with me and opposed my feelings about the man. But for the most part we all concurred that Gibson, quite possibly, was the greatest catcher (and hitter) to never play in the majors.
Often touted as the greatest home run hitter in the Negro Leagues, Gibson was born in Georgia prior to the First World War, but moved to Pittsburgh at the age of 10 when his father went to work in the steel mills. Gibson’s first love was baseball and by the time he was only 16, he was the rage of sandlot baseball fans throughout the area. In school he won several track meets despite his stocky, thick-legged physique, but Gibson was a natural athlete and proved it in any sporting endeavor he participated in.
Though Gibson had aspirations of becoming an electrician, and attended both Allegheny and Conroy Pre-Vocational Schools, it was not meant to be. By 1930, he was 18, married to Helen Mason, and playing for the Pittsburgh Crawfords (a.k.a. Colored Giants) when he caught the eye of Cum Posey, the co-owner and manager of the dominant Homestead Grays. Gibson’s stout but solid physique made him ideal for playing catcher, and Posey recognized his capabilities at the position.
Gibson’s first experience playing organized baseball happened in 1928 when he was only 16 years old. At the time, Gibson had been hired at Gimbels Department Store to be an elevator operator, and was quickly involved in their amateur baseball team playing third base. He was often scouted while playing and was signed by the Crawfords who were the best Black semi-pro team in the Pittsburgh area and were controlled by a man named Gus Greenlee. By 1931, they would be entrenched in full professional Negro League membership.
There have two been stories, if not sheer legends, as to how Gibson came to play his first game with the Homestead team. The Grays were deep in talent, but Posey was determined to recruit Gibson as a substitute catcher and basically put Gibson on a moment’s notice to be ready to suit up when called. One story recants that Gibson sat in the stands the night of a Grays-Kansas City Monarchs game while eating several hotdogs. Buck Ewing, the Grays catcher somehow split his finger open and Posey dragged Gibson out of the stands and told him to suit up.
The less comical story states that Ewing had indeed injured his finger, but it happened in a prior game against a semi-pro team from another league. Gibson was actually playing in a game across town for the Pittsburgh Crawfords when Posey supposedly sent a cab to fetch him for the game. Sneaking in to the Grays dugout, Gibson suited up and was announced for the game with little or no fanfare to mark the occasion. At the time, Gibson could not have joined a better team anywhere in the league.
In 1928, Posey made the Grays the class of Negro baseball by aligning them within the league. His teams were not only disciplined and deep in talent, but they won consistently. Fellow teammates like Ewing and Judy Johnson took Gibson under their wing and molded him into a marquee player and star. All of that mentoring must have paid off since Gibson batted .461 in his rookie season with the Grays. He also helped them win the Eastern Division championship when they defeated the Lincoln Giants of New York at Yankee Stadium. In one of the games he drilled a home run over the left field fence into the bullpen area and it was measured at over 500 feet where it hit.
For the player’s economic benefit, the Negro Leagues scheduled fewer league games enabling the players to participate in barnstorming competitions throughout the semi-pro ranks. The players made more money and so did the league this way. The downside was in the record keeping and this has come to be the chief reason why so many of Gibson’s achievements have been questioned and speculated over.
It became difficult to separate actual league records from barnstorming accomplishments and therefore to distinguish differences between what happened in the league versus outside competition. Because of not compiling game records and player statistics, it may be impossible to verify all the true achievements of Negro League players. Where Gibson was concerned, volumes have been written about his skills and performance based on autobiographies of players, news articles, and verbal interviews that were in existence at the time.
Regardless of record keeping, the next five seasons saw the Pittsburgh club destroy and dominate all competition in the league, and Gibson led the charge. In 1933, Gibson played in 137 games, batted .467, and slugged 55 home runs. The next year, he hit 69 homers in 134 games. Suffice it to say, wherever the Crawfords played, when Gibson was in the lineup it was a standing room only crowd. His teammate, Cool Papa Bell was once quoted as saying that Gibson would have hit twice the home runs that he hit if most of the parks they played in had fences so the players couldn’t play him 400 feet deep in the outfield. The fact that legend and myth often cross over was probably what led to the story of Gibson hitting a ball completely out of Yankee Stadium, when in fact this never happened. However, the aforementioned home run against Lincoln is listed as the longest one ever hit in the storied stadium.
Gibson’s love for playing baseball all year long (when he could get away with it) is probably why the record books show stats for him in the Central American, Cuban, Mexican, and Puerto Rican Leagues. He signed lucrative contracts in all these leagues at one time or another and was considered to be a hero in Puerto Rico where he was idolized by fans. Gibson was often quoted as saying that playing there was the high point of his career. In 1937, Bell, Paige, and Gibson all played for the Dominican All Stars and won the league championship.
In 1936, Gibson left the Crawfords to rejoin Cum Posey with the Grays. It would be the start of nine consecutive championships for the Hartford club. Posey was once quoted as saying that Gibson was “the best ballplayer, white or colored, that we have seen in all our years of following baseball.” Though he was admired and well-liked by fans and his teammates, Gibson was not a personable fellow. Paige’s showmanship on and off the field often angered the quiet, business-like Gibson as he was never prone to seek attention from the press as did Paige.
During the 1940’s, Gibson started to break down both mentally and physically, his condition oftentimes being attributed to his penchant for alcohol and drugs. Years of physical punishment as a catcher began taking its toll on his knees and shoulders, and he would regularly use alcohol and drugs to help mask the physical pain resulting from his career. He also succumbed to drug abuse in order to escape the mental pain he was suffering from the fears of a career that might end without him ever playing baseball in the major leagues.
Gibson was committed briefly to a Washington, D.C. area mental hospital in 1943 after suffering from a nervous breakdown (triggered by high blood pressure) and collapsing either during or just prior to a ball game in which he was to start while pro scouts were in the audience scouting players for the majors. During his stay in the hospital, doctors had diagnosed that his collapse and high blood pressure was a direct result from his alcohol and drug abuse. When Gibson was released and played in his first game after his collapse and ensuing stint in the hospital, he appeared somewhat beleaguered and slightly frail as he walked out of the dugout to assume his position behind home plate.
Though Gibson was only in his early thirties, the trip to the hospital and the rehabilitation period seemed to do him more harm than good. It was well documented in the tabloids that he became depressed and despondent towards the care his family, doctors, and teammates all tried to show him. His depressed mental state often saw him throw fits of rage and rambling outbursts, and his downhill slide grew progressively worse as a result of his consumption of alcohol and drugs. Stories surrounding this part of his life run parallel in thought and opinion with those who were close to him at the time.
Gibson fell into a coma in 1943 and upon coming out of it, his doctors informed him that they had found a brain tumor and recommended surgery to remove it. Fearing that he would never be the same after the surgery and that he might possibly be confined to using a wheelchair the rest of his life, he refused adamantly and immediately left and went home. As a result of not having the prescribed surgery, he suffered with headaches the rest of his life.
There were even myths about how his death came about, but the most common was the one that told of how he had indulged a little too heavily in his favorite spirits and decided to take a nap around noontime so as to be awake and alert for a trip with the family to a movie theater that evening. Upon laying down to rest, he had called his family to come to his bedside and informed them that he would die before the evening was over. Naturally they all laughed thinking his inebriated condition was doing all the talking. In the midst of conversation and some laughter, Gibson sat straight up, began muttering incoherently, and then suddenly reposed back and died.
Truer accounts and reports were not as humorous or dramatic. Gibson did indeed attend a movie at the theater with his family that evening after he had napped for a few hours and ate his dinner. While in the theater, Gibson suffered a massive stroke and slumped in his seat unconscious. His family took him to his mother’s house where he died only a few hours later.
Long after his death, Jimmie Crutchfield, his long time teammate and close friend often stated that Gibson had not really passed away from that stroke he suffered on January 20th, 1947 (listed as the day of his death in the record books). Crutchfield instead claimed that Gibson died from a broken heart that he suffered as a result of never being able to realize his lifelong dream of playing in the white major leagues. Ironically, three months after Gibson’s passing, Jackie Robinson became the one that realized the dream (instead of Gibson) when he broke the color barrier by breaking into the major leagues.
Though Gibson’s true statistical accomplishments may never be known in their entirety, research continues to be conducted for the Special Committee on the Negro Leagues in the hopes of uncovering more and more history and statistical data for players like Gibson. The records show that Gibson hit 224 homeruns in 2,375 at bats against top Black teams of his day. According to The Complete Book of Baseball’s Negro Leagues: the Other Half of Baseball History, the author Jon B. Holway confirms accuracy of these records that are all in print.
However, the 224 home runs do not come close to what other historians and Gibson’s teammates (along with other ballplayers of the day) have continually stated for nearly 60 years since his death. One has to question the proof of these statements as having often been dismissed as hearsay. Recent investigations into the statistics that were accumulated from newspaper box scores nationwide have led to comments that the league performed roughly two-thirds of its games against inferior competition while traveling and barnstorming exhibition games.
The point of the exercise here is that despite the fact that the 224 home runs are deemed accurate, the number is ridiculously conservative compared to the myriad of reports and stories that exist claiming that he hit between 800 and 1,000 homers in his career. All the research that has been compiled shows Gibson hit a home run about every 16 at bats. Comparatively speaking, where the top nine home run hitters in the majors are concerned, his average home runs per at bats runs consistently with that of the major league ballplayer’s stats.
It is this lack of verifiable statistics (outside of the above information) which has obviously bred the myths and “tall tales” about Gibson’s career as well as that of other Negro Leaguer’s whose statistics are in the same boat. The problem of statistical validation continues today, but fortunately the technology and research capabilities of the modern era are more advanced than when records were originally kept and research into the subject began. Despite the lack of proof based on insufficient evidence to the contrary, the numbers we currently have do validate the fact that Gibson was one of the best catchers and power hitters of his day, if not all of baseball.
In closing, I’ve chosen to include what is written in Wikipedia where both assumption and statistics surrounding Gibson’s career are concerned:
“The Josh Gibson Baseball Hall of Fame plaque says he hit ‘almost 800’ homers in his 17-year career against Negro League and independent baseball. His lifetime batting average, according to the Hall of Fame’s official data, was .359. It was reported that he won nine home-run titles and four batting championships playing for the Pittsburgh 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.”
As always, you can e-mail your comments and questions to me at no1nyyfan55@yahoo.com and I will respond to them as quickly as possible.
Sources:
Baseball Library http://www.baseballlibrary.com
Baseball Reference http://www.baseball-reference.com
Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.com
Holway, John B. (2001), The Complete Book of Baseball’s Negro Leagues: The Other Half of Baseball History, Fern Park, FL: Hastings House Publishers
