As South Orange native Joe Martinez takes the mound on Monday night, pitching against the Mets, it’s a good time to consider other players who have shown South Orange the best of baseball. Josh Gibson was one such player, who, as a member of the Pittsburgh Crawfords, played at the South Orange Field Club in the early 1930s. (Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were guests in 1929.)

Known as “the black Babe Ruth” in the sports pages, Gibson was the Negro Leagues’ greatest home run hitter. Born Dec. 21, 1911, in Buena Vista, GA, Gibson and his family moved to Pittsburgh at age 10. According to accounts from the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, Gibson was soon known throughout Pittsburgh for his skills with a bat. By age 18, he was playing for the Crawford Colored Giants, a semipro team, when he came to the attention of Cum Posey, co-owner and manager of the powerful Homestead Grays.

Gibson's first appearance with the Grays is the stuff of legend. The story has it that during a Grays-Kansas City Monarchs night game, Gibson was in the stands eating hot dogs. When Buck Ewing, the Grays starting catcher, split a finger, Gibson was called out of the stands and into the limelight. The true account is that Ewing did split his finger, but it was in a game against a semipro team. Manager Posey sent a cab for Gibson, who was playing across town for the Crawford Colored Giants, and a few innings later Gibson was put into the Grays' lineup.

Gibson batted for a phenomenal .461 average in his rookie year, but the lure of a more lucrative contract drew him to the Pittsburgh Crawfords in 1932. Owner Gus Greenlee assembled a nearly unbeatable lineup, including Gibson, Satchel Paige, Judy Johnson and Coach Oscar Charleston. For the next five years, including the time of their appearance in South Orange, the team dominated Negro League play.

Gibson's slugging drew big crowds wherever the Crawfords appeared. Late in his career, Gibson said his longest home run went out of Farmers Park in East Orange, NJ, and "over a two-story station outside the park."

Like most stars of the Negro Leagues, Gibson played winter ball in Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico and Central America. He rejoined Cum Posey and the Homestead Grays in 1936, the start of the Grays' nine-year run of Negro League championships. In 1937, Posey wrote that Gibson was "the best ballplayer, white or colored, that we have seen in all our years of following baseball."

Thousands of innings behind the plate took a toll on Gibson. In the 1940s, he suffered a “nervous collapse” that hospitalized him. He suffered from high blood pressure and numerous joint problems.

His death on Jan. 20, 1947, came to be clouded with myth. Gibson, it was said, believed he was going to die and gathered his family around his bedside. In truth, Gibson suffered a stroke in a movie theater and was taken to his mother's house, where he died a few hours later.

Gibson was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1972, the second Negro League player, after Satchel Paige, to be so honored.

South Orange fans were fortunate to witness the prowess of this player. A story told about Josh Gibson illustrates the power of his hitting and the endurance of his legend. As the story goes, Gibson hit a homerun in Pittsburgh, when he hit a ball out of the park and out of sight. The next day, when Gibson was playing in Philadelphia, a ball came down out of the sky and landed in an outfielder's glove, whereupon the umpire promptly declared to Josh, "You're out yesterday in Pittsburgh!"

Other sources:

• Welk, Naoma. Images of America: South Orange. Arcadia, 2002.