Nothing sullies the remembrance of Josh's golden moments as witnessed by fellow Negro-league performers. Buck Leonard remembers a game against Leon Day and the Newark Eagles in which the Grays were behind, 2-1. When a runner got on first, Leonard sacrificed him to second, one of the few times the hard-hitting Leonard ever bunted. Josh could tie the game with a single, so Day bore down on him. He got two strikes past Josh and prepared to set him up for a third. Again, Josh was the kind of hitter, as his teammates insist to this day, who never worried about two strikes on him. He didn't shorten up or widen his stance. He believed he could hit anything in any situation, and simply had the confidence he would. Day wound up and threw a tough two-strike pitch, a fast curveball on the outside of the plate, and Josh nailed it over the scoreboard in center field. It was a blast which not only broke up the ball game but which had people slapping their foreheads in disbelief. "He was that kind of power hitter," Leonard said. "Nobody knows how far that ball went that day."

Or the time Jack Marshall saw him commit himself too soon and almost strike out on a sucker pitch. Almost. For as Marshall remembers it, Sonny Cornelius was pitching for the American Giants against the Grays at Victory Field in Indianapolis, Indiana. Cornelius threw Josh a good slow curve and fooled him completely. Josh took his short stride, shifted his weight as much as he ever did, and began his swing. He brought his left arm across his body, but halted the motion at the sight of Cornelius's tantalizing slow curve, let go of the bat with his left hand, and with only his right hand gripping the handle, swatted at the ball as if he were going after a horsefly. The drive carried 375 feet and out of the park. Josh circled the bases, unable to contain a smile; Sonny Cornelius shook his head.

Even with such power, such amazing home runs, Josh was seldom seen hotdogging when he circled the bases. His talent and power were natural to him, and he din't feel the need to rub it into opposing players. When he was just breaking in, he occasionally razzed opposing pitchers as he circled the bases, but he did it competitively, not to mock or taunt them. He might have done more of it if it had been in him, but Gibson's personality right from the start was withdrawn and modest in most respects. He saw the leverage that some players got out of being showboats and crowd-pleasers, and he often tried to join in. But it wasn't really a natural facility. He was an attraction with a bat in his hands and he knew that. If the rest did not come, he would not force it.

He had his problems hitting on occasion, like everybody else. He fell into slumps, he struck out, and he had pitchers he could not get to. Teddy "Big Florida" Trent of the American Giants was one. Trent threw a good slider and a variety of curves, described by one teammate as "a long one, a short one, and a shorter one," all of which made him tough on Josh. Larry Brown, whose job as one of the fine catchers of black baseball was to help pitchers outwit Josh, said that Josh was "perhaps the best natural hitter and hardest slugger in Negro baseball." Brown said that he could not find Josh's weakness and that so many times after a particular pitcher had struck out Gibson and was convinced he could handle him, "Josh came back and knocked the pitch out of the park."

Chet Brewer, the fine Chicago American Giant and Kansas City Monarch hurler, had his moments against Josh. Yet Brewer was never convinced of his success and maintained that Josh hit so well because he had such amazing coordination and control at the plate. "He could hit any pitch to any field. The only way to pitch to him was to throw the ball low and behind him."

Yet the hardest on Josh, as he was on almost every other hitter in baseball, was the gangling Satchel Paige. Josh's hits against Paige were "few and far between," by his own admission, and he never effortlessly touched Satchel for homers. Paige, for his part, played many years alongside Gibson. When he opposed Josh, he said he had as difficult a time as anyone. "You look for his weakness and while you lookin' for it he liable to hit forty-five home runs," Satchel said.

The stories are repeated into the night; the blasts longer, more awesome, more impossible. Paige claims Josh hit one off the scoreboard clock in Wrigley Field, a drive which would have had to have been heading for a distance of 700 feet. It is most unlikely that Gibson ever came close, for the clock stands 100 feet up and once was barely reached by Sam Snead and a three- iron.

But such tales are the stuff of legends, and they grow taller as the years pass.

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