Re: Intersting perspective on the HOME RUN race. Where is Josh Gibson
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Suttles’ 1927 home field, in St Louis, had a short porch about 250 feet away, though centerfield was about 500 feet. His target in 1937 was Newark’s Ruppert Stadium, with about a 301-foot foul line in left, though again, centerfield was huge. (Mule’s two other home parks were Comiskey Park, one of the larger fields in the majors, and Birmingham, perhaps as big as, or bigger than, Griffith.
Griffith Stadium was so daunting that in one season, 1944, all the right-handed sluggers in the American league could hit only one ball into the bleacher in 77 games. Josh single-handedly hit seven there in ten games.
Can you imagine Gibson in the white majors in a bandbox like Ebbetts Field in Brooklyn, where the power alley in left was 348 feet? Or Fenway Park in Boston? (Josh was a line-drive hitter, so the famous Wall might actually have hurt his home run production.)
To get an appreciation of just what Gibson was up against, I inclose diagrams of Griffith, Ebbetts, and Fenway superimposed to scale.
/// John B Holway is author of Josh and Satch and The Complete Book of the Negro Leagues. Autographed copies are available from the author at jholway@erols.com
