Josh Gibson was a celebrated young athlete in Pittsburgh, where his family moved from Buena Vista, Va., 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.
Baseball catcher Josh Gibson in an undated photo. Josh Gibson became Major League Baseball’s career leader with a .372 batting average, surpassing Ty Cobb’s .367, when records of the Negro Leagues for more than 2,300 players were incorporated after a … 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.
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. 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.
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.
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.”
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