Gibson’s legacy was alive last week

In September 1941, Johnny Taylor, the Bulkeley High pitching star who was denied the chance to play in the major leagues, was playing in Mexico, surrounded by some of the best players ever to wear spikes.

Like Taylor, all were barred from playing in the American or National League by the game’s race barrier.

Taylor agreed to come home after the season, bringing a number of his teammates with him to play a doubleheader against the famed Savitt Gems at Bulkeley Stadium, where 3,000 people gathered. The team Taylor assembled included three future Hall of Famers: Ray Dandridge, Willie Wells and his batterymate, Josh Gibson.

The Courant, like most newspapers who mentioned Gibson at the time, called him “the colored Babe Ruth” in advancing the event. His family, in the voice of great-grandson Sean Gibson, counters, “Babe Ruth was the white Josh Gibson.”

The Negro Leagues all-stars won both games that Sept. 29. Taylor struck out 15 in the first game, and though Gibson did not hit one of his titanic home runs, he doubled, singled, stole a base and scored four times in an 11-inning victory. He caught all 20 innings played. That may have been Connecticut’s only glimpse of Gibson, who died at 35 from a brain tumor in 1947, the year the barrier came down and Black players were allowed to play in the AL and NL.

“We can only speculate what Josh would have done,” said Sean Gibson, executive director of the Josh Gibson Foundation, during a visit to Hartford last week. “We don’t know what he he would have done, but I know what Satchel Paige did. He was in his 40s when he joined Cleveland, and he competed with all these guys.”

Sean Gibson was in town for the Yard Goats’ HBCU and Negro League celebration, appearing first at the Boys and Girls Club in the South End, where he hosted a showing and discussion of the award-winning documentary “Legend Behind the Plate: The Josh Gibson Story.” He also participated in a panel discussion on race and gender equity at Thomas Hooker Live.

Through the Josh Gibson Foundation, which was established by Sean’s grandfather, Josh’s son, the legacy is kept alive and funds are raised to help the communities in Pittsburgh and D.C., where Gibson played most of his career.

“It has always been our mission to preserve the history of the Negro Leagues, not just Josh Gibson, but the great players who played for the Homestead Grays and the Pittsburgh Crawfords,” Sean said.

Since Josh Gibson was inducted into the Hall of Fame 50 years ago this summer, his plaque has read that he hit “almost 800 home runs in league and independent baseball.” It has been written that

he once hit a fair ball out of the original Yankee Stadium and, like Ruth, there are stories nearly everywhere he played on barnstorming tours about the long home runs he hit.

“I just saw an article where Josh hit a 600-foot home run in Belmar, N.J.,” Sean said.

When he goes to PNC Park in Pittsburgh, Sean Gibson closes his eyes and wonders how many balls his great-grandfather might’ve hit into the Allegheny River.

The Gibson family would like to see the MVP award renamed for Josh Gibson, but that’s unlikely to happen soon. The likeness of Kennesaw Mountain Landis, the commissioner who kept segregation in place, was taken off the award. As of now, the Baseball Writers Association of America refers to the AL and NL MVP awards as just that. Sean would also like movement on MLB’s plan to include Negro League stats in the official record book.

Baseballreference.com currently credits Josh with 165 home runs and three batting titles in the Negro League championship games. Other research suggests he hit 224 homers in 2,375 at-bats in the Negro Leagues, two in 56 at-bats against white major league pitchers and 44 in 450 at-bats in the Mexican League.

But in the end, the stats are not the point here. It is who Josh Gibson was that matters, what he endured, what he was denied. Josh lost his wife as she was giving birth to twins and was a single father. Sean’s grandfather was a bat boy for many of the teams Josh played for and passed down the stories.

As the Gibson Foundation is celebrating the 50th anniversary of his induction into Cooperstown, Sean will be traveling to minor league cities all summer to bring Josh to life for the new generation. He isn’t sure what his great-grandfather would make of the 2020s.

“I think he would be very disappointed,” Sean said.

“In 2020, we celebrated the hundredth anniversary of the Negro Leagues, and here in 2022, African Americans are still going through the same things he was going through. And the percentage of African Americans playing major league baseball is very low, compared to the 1970s. He’d be very disappointed to see there are not more GMs, managers and coaches.”