Joshua Gibson was an American baseball player considered one of the best long-distance hitters in the history of his country. He played most of his career in the Negro Leagues as well as on teams from the Caribbean and Mexico. He is known to some as the Black Babe Ruth.
The beginning
When Josh was around ten years old his family moved to Pittsburgh where his father got a job in a steel mill. In his teens he liked athletics in track events, despite his robust bearing. But it was baseball the sport that caught his attention and in which he began to play amateurishly.
Many of Gibson’s events touch the sports legend even since he joined the Negro League in 1930. According to some, this occurred in Pittsburgh when he was called directly from the stands by the manager of the Homestead Grays, when his hand injured the car holder, knowing the handler of the boy’s potential. The truth seems to be that he had him brought with a taxi through the city where he played with a semi-professional team. Innings later made his debut, and the next day he was hired.
In his first year of batting, he hit a .461 average. In addition, according to a report by Sporting News magazine, he performed a 580-foot-long homerun at Yankee Stadium. In 1931 he was credited with 75 home runs.
In 1932 he moved to the Pittsburgh Crawfords where he played alongside pitcher Satchel Paige, with whom he formed one of the most famous drums (pitcher and catcher) in the history of this sport, for five years this team dominated the league. In 1934 Gibson hit 69 home runs and in 1937 he shot 55 with a .467 average (in five years he was the player with the highest number of homeruns three times). He returned to the Grays in 1936, which marked the beginning of nine consecutive titles won by this club.
Career in the Negro League and Latin America
His first experience outside the United States was in 1937 in the Dominican Republic where he played alongside Paige on a team owned by the dictator Rafael Trujillo. On his return to the Negro League, he achieved two more titles with the highest number of home runs, and batting in 1938. During those years, he apparently had approaches with the Washington Senators of the majors, but the color barrier got in the way.
In 1940 and 1941 he returned to Latin America to the Mexican and Puerto Rican leagues, but was forced to return due to a lawsuit filed in 1942 by the owner of the Homestead Grays.
FINAL YEARS
In 1943 he was diagnosed with a brain tumor, having collapsed earlier in the year. This probably had an impact on his daily behavior as he became irritable, and, to top it off, he had fallen into alcoholism. He refused to undergo surgery for fear of ending up in a vegetative state, but this did not interrupt his performance on the field by winning two batting titles and three more home runs.
There are different versions of his death: one is that after speaking incoherently he died in his room, surrounded by his relatives and their trophies. The most credible version was that he suddenly died in a theater in Pittsburgh. He was just 35 years old.
The end of Gibson was marked by irony because that same year, five months after his death, Jackie Robinson broke racial prejudice and made his debut in the major leagues. Satchel did it in 1948. That was something Gibson could never achieve despite his powerful performance.
Many of Gibson’s personal statistics are uncertain. His Hall of Fame plaque indicates that he “almost” hit 800 home runs in his professional life. Others set it at 963 in a 17-year career. It is admitted, however, that his home runs usually reached more than 500 feet (150 meters); there is also documentation that between 1930 and 1951 Josh hit .351. In games against major league players, he averaged .426. In an event that historians consider unlikely, some credit Gibson as the only player to have literally kicked the ball out of the old Yankee Stadium in 1934.
With a reserved character, very different from the outgoing Paige, Gibson left the uncertainty of what would have happened if he had played in the majors. Despite this, the words of those who knew him leave no doubt of his quality as a player. Homstead Grays owner Cum Posey said of him: “the best player, black or white, that we have seen in all these years that we have followed baseball.”
By Edgar Sanchez.
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