Station Square park will honor Josh Gibson, other Negro League legends
Few cities have as rich a Negro League tradition as Pittsburgh, and that tradition is about to get a whole lot richer.
After 10 years of planning and fundraising, the Josh Gibson Foundation held a groundbreaking ceremony Wednesday morning for the Josh Gibson Heritage Park at Station Square. The park, expected to open next spring, will feature four monuments celebrating the careers and legacies of iconic Negro League ballplayers Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, Cool Papa Bell and Cumberland Posey.
Sean Gibson, executive director of the Josh Gibson Foundation and great-grandson of the Negro League legend, said the moment was a long time coming.
“It’s not just exciting for Josh Gibson, it’s exciting for the other great Negro League baseball players, and also the city of Pittsburgh,” Sean Gibson said. “We have a great tradition here with the Negro Leagues.”
All four players being immortalized were members of one of the area’s two Negro League teams — the Pittsburgh Crawfords and the Homestead Grays. Sean Gibson said the park will expand in 2019 to feature four more local legends — Judy Johnson, Buck Leonard, Oscar Charleston and Vic Harris.
Josh Gibson, nicknamed “The Summer King” and “The Black Babe Ruth,” is universally recognized as one of the greatest hitters whoever lived.
Mr. Paige is regarded by many as a hard-throwing pitcher whom Joe DiMaggio once called the best and fastest pitcher he ever faced. Mr. Bell was one of the fastest players of his era, known for his sparkling outfield defense. And Mr. Posey was an exceptional athlete who played for, managed, and ownedthe Homestead Grays — and in 2016 he became the only man enshrined in both theprofessional baseball and basketballhalls of fame.
“Ofcourse, we can’t recognize everybody, although we would love to,” Sean Gibson said. “But we’re going to recognize who we think were our prominent players, especially in the Pittsburgh area, because the players that we have have the Pittsburgh ties. So their families can come down and be able to be proudto see their families on monuments and things like that.”
Forest City Realty Trust, which owns Station Square, donated the land where the park will be built. The monuments, which will line the sidewalk across from the Sheraton hotel, will feature lifelike renderings of the players in a bronze frame on a brick wall.
“That’s the good thing about it — they’re not statues, they’re monuments,” Sean Gibson said. “So it’s a brick wall, and they’ll be like 3-D figures coming out of the wall.”
Pittsburgh sports artist and Brookline native Dino Guarino, who helped develop the monuments along with J. Frank Studios, said he borrowed from Pittsburgh’s blue-collar roots when creating the designs.
“My concept was to honor the Negro Leagues, to honor a part of baseball tradition, a big part of the fabric of America,” Mr. Guarino said. “The brickwork, representing the labor force of Pittsburgh, the people that built this city. And obviously, if you see the grid work, it’s in the shape of a bridge.”
The monuments will signify Pittsburgh’s past and the legacies of these Hall of Fame players, while also incorporating futuristic technology to appeal to younger generations. Rather than read the descriptions of the players themselves, visitors with smartphones will be able to download the information and have it read out loudthrough their phone by Rob Ruck, a Pittsburgh sports historian who collaborated with the Josh Gibson Foundationon the project.
“The one thing about Pittsburgh that I realize is that, no matter if you’re black or white, we like history,” Sean Gibson said. “... With things that are going on right now in America, with what just happened this past weekend, what better way to have a park like this to bring people together, black and white, to be able to learn the history of the Negro Leagues?”