Damn You, Josh Gibson: A Ghost Story

Field of Dreams meets Back to the Future in this wondrous tale.

He was the only man to hit a home run clean out of the original Yankee Stadium and the first to hit a home run into the Polo Grounds centerfield bleachers more than 500 feet away. He may have been the best power hitter in the history of baseball. Some called him the Black Babe Ruth. In the blue-collar world in which he played, they knew better. To them, Babe Ruth was the White Josh Gibson.

But never once did he get as much as a single swing of the bat in a major league ball game. Josh Gibson was a Black man, and the commissioner, the owners, and the players followed a unanimous rule: No Black man would ever be allowed to play their game. Instead, Gibson became the most valuable hitter in the all-Black game, setting records with both the Homestead Grays and the Pittsburgh Crawfords. When the Negro National League season ended, he joined others who followed the sun to Latin America, where the crowds did not see skin color, only shut-out pitchers and homerun hitters.

This a ghost story, a mystical trip guided by the late Mr. Gibson along with a former Negro League player and his 14-year-old grandson, whom a panel of ghosts has chosen to be their messenger to tell the world that once they had two leagues all their own. Two leagues where only the ball was white. Josh recreates the legend of Leon Day, Satchel Paige, Ray Dandridge and so many more along the way-magically created courtesy of their ghostly tour guide. Asked in an interview about his interest in Negro League baseball, Jerry Izenberg, author and master storyteller, replied, "It started the day I first saw the Newark Eagles of the National League play. I was ten years old and the only white kid in short pants in the ballpark."

A blend of education deferred and admiration too long denied, Damn You, Josh Gibson takes readers on a magical ride and reveals a chapter of sports history that should never be forgotten.