Josh Gibson and the Negro Leagues

[timconnelly]

This thread is created as an enticement to get bill wisnosky to tell us about Josh Gibson and the Negro Leagues: In a previous post, Bill spoke of actually personally seeing Gibson hit home runs of 450 to 550 feet!

Since I've never had any contact with anybody who actually saw Gibson play, I'm very excited to have a chance to hear first hand from someone who did.

Did you see Gibson in his prime?
How many years was this before before Jackie Robinson?
How many total Negro League games did you see?
Were you going to major league games at the same time? How would you compare the caliber of play?
Would you share any stories, insights, opinions: What I'm saying is be as long winded as you can be!!

[Xanadu Dragon]

According to Wiz' profile, he would have been ages 3 to 18 when Gibson played -- so, it's possible. I'll e-mail Wiz to alert him of this request for info.

[Yogi#8Fan]

http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/hofers_and_honorees/hofer_bios/gibson_josh.htm

http://www.blackbaseball.com/players/gibson.htm

http://shadowball.iwaynet.net/gibson.htm

http://vtvt.essortment.com/joshgibsonbiog_rtoq.htm

http://www.execpc.com/~sshivers/gibson.html

[sweaver]

I think we need to check spelling in the title of this thread.

[Xanadu Dragon]

Originally posted by sweaver
I think we need to check spelling in the title of this thread.

Fixed.

[sweaver]

Thanks, big guy.

It's too bad we don't have good film of Negro Leaguers like Gibson and Oscar Charleston in their prime. There just is not enough statistical evidence to evaluate them well, and if we had film at least we could see what they played like.

Oh well, until time travel is perfected.

[KCBOOMER]

I would encourage everyone to support the Negro League Baseball Museum located in Kansas City. This is a fabulous museum and worthy of the support of all baseball fans. Buck O'Neill is a frequent guest at the museum and any time you get to hear him speak on the Negro Leagues do it. It is worth any cost.

Check out the website at www.nlbm.com.

[Yogi#8Fan]

Originally posted by Xanadu Dragon
Fixed. It still reads "Nego" rather than "Negro" in Tim's original post (not the title but the bold part up top). Can either yourself or Tim fix this, please?Originally posted by timconnelly
This thread is created as an enticement to get bill wisnosky to tell us about Josh Gibson and the Negro Leagues: In a previous post, Bill spoke of actually personally seeing Gibson hit home runs of 450 to 550 feet!Unless the balls used, the pitching or other factors were much different than MLB in the past 25 years, this would be great but didn't Willie Stargell do the same thing? Not as many HRs, but himself, Big Mac, Kingman, Straw all clobberred the bejesus out of the ball whenever they could.