Coming Home

Very few baseball fans, let alone people in general, have ever heard of a player named Josh Gibson. Gibson hit more homeruns than any professional baseball player ever and was considered one of the greatest ever to play the game. But Gibson never gained the fame or recognition he deserved because he was black and was forced to play in the Negro League. Gibson loved baseball and played it with a passion that many of today's million-dollar players have long since lost or never had. From the stories I've heard, watching Gibson play was like watching Michael Jordan play basketball at the top of his game; there wasn't anything like it and there never would be again. Gibson had hoped to eventually play in Major League Baseball and had inclinations of being the person to break the color barrier. But the toils and hardships of a difficult life and the poverty of being a baseball player in the Negro Leagues affected his health and he died in 1947. He was only 35 years old. Just three months after his death Jackie Robinson became the first black player to play Major League Baseball when he was hired by the Brooklyn Dodgers. COMING HOME is a story about a grandfather telling his grandson about the best hitter he had ever seen. Explaining some of the very basics of history, the grandfather tells his grandson about the time he saw Josh Gibson play in the Negro League Championship in Yankee Stadium. The story is well told and the illustrations of Cornelius Van Wright and Ying-Hwa Hu do a great job of augmenting the text (the illustration of the grandfather's father trying to rip his hat in two as Gibson strikes out is perfect). This is a delightful book for anyone interested in baseball or black history. Reading it is a good start in helping to keep the memory of Josh Gibson alive.

This book gives a lot of information about Josh Gibson, if you never heard of him. In the book, a grandfather tells his grandson about Josh Gibson, and about witnessing a famous home run Josh hit in Yankee Stadium. I recommend this book to learn about the best home run hitter of the Negro Leagues, and maybe of all of Major League Baseball.