NEGRO LEAGUE LEGEND - THE BLACK BABE
Caption: NEGRO LEAGUE LEGEND / THE BLACK BABE Josh Gibson may have been the greatest home-run hitter ever. Josh Gibson, a powerful 6-foot-1, 215-pound catcher, allegedly hit more than 900 home runs in his career, although some of them came against semi-pro competition.
What irritates me every time I read stories like this is when I read crap like ballplayers from the Negro leagues like Gibson were great BUT: “although some of them came against semi-pro competition.
As far as I’m concerned it goes both ways. Ruth did not play against THE BEST. Imagine an NBA with all white players. Just because all the money and attention went to the all white MLB baseball, they of course were legitimate, they of course were the pros.
Jackie Robinson when he broke the famed “color barrier” was hardly the best black player to come from the Negro leagues, he was simply the right person at the right time.
Playing ball with white folks legitimizes you athletically I guess like going to school with them legitimizes you academically.
THE STORY….
Josh Gibson may have been the greatest home-run hitter ever
Ron Kroichick, SF Chronicle Staff Writer
The stories about Josh Gibson carry a mythical, Babe-like aura.
There was the time Gibson hit a line drive inches above pitcher Satchel Paige’s head during a game at Yankee Stadium — and the ball zoomed over the center-field wall. Or the time Gibson knocked a speaker off the roof at old Comiskey Park with a searing shot to right-center. Or the many times Gibson’s blasts scattered kids perched in trees beyond the center-field fence at Griffith Stadium, a good 500 feet from home plate.
As Barry Bonds chases Babe Ruth’s treasured spot in home run history, with only Hank Aaron on the horizon, it’s worth wondering where Gibson might fit in this illustrious group. He was the preeminent home-run hitter in the Negro Leagues, a stout catcher whose displays of power rivaled Ruth’s.
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May 8th, 2006 at 3:52 am
Good point about academics. Clarence Thomas made the same argument (Harry Reid notwithstanding) in the KC schools deseg case… it’s amazing how that assumption is smuggled so easily into policy decisions. Can’t have a district that’s majority black; dem darkies’ll never learn nuthin’. So let’s send cabs to the suburbs and get some white kids in here to clean the place up.
Oh, and while we’re on the subject of the Negro Leagues, I ran across something I thought you might enjoy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6xJzAYYrX8
May 8th, 2006 at 4:55 pm
ElB man it pisses me off that I can’t embed the player but I’m gonna add the link somewhere on my sidebar I love it.