Josh and Buck Take the FieldBy David Marasco If you flip through SABR's home run encyclopedia you will find that the Washington Senators hit only one home run at home in 1945. While this is a little bit surprising, it isn't shocking. Outside of a handful of seasons the Senators were the doormat of the American League, and with the war going on the talent level was even lower. With that knowledge one might expect that the rest of the league lit up the Senator's pitchers. But at Griffith Park this wasn't the story. The other teams in the American League hit only six home runs in DC. Granted, Griffith was a monster of a ballyard, but an entire league hitting only seven homers there in a year? It's true, it is there in black and white.
But baseball was not there in black and white. At least not at the same time. 1945
predated Jackie Robinson. However, the Senators did share their stadium with the
Homestead Grays of the Negro National League. The heart of their order consisted
of Josh Gibson and Buck Leonard, the Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig of colored baseball.
With the American League belting only seven in 1945, how did these sluggers stack up?
Armed with microflim and patience I decided to find out.
Researching the Negro Leagues is notoriously difficult. If you want to know what Christy Mathewson did on a certain day in 1905 this is not a problem. With Satchel Paige it is a different story. The African American press operated on a weekly basis, and often road contests and games later in the week were not reported. In this case there is a cause for hope. Of the larger race papers, two of them had reason to give the Grays special treatment. The Baltimore Afro-American obviously saw the Grays as a home team. On top of that, the Pittsburgh Courier also gave the Grays close coverage. Homestead was a locality near Pittsburgh, so the Grays started out as a Pittsburgh team. Although they relocated to Washington DC in the late 1930's, the Grays still played a handful of "home games" in the Steel City each year. In the end I used four sources in an attempt to reconstruct the Gray's 1945 season and search for Negro League home runs in Griffith stadium: the Baltimore Afro-American, the Chicago Defender, the New York Amsterdam News and the Pittsburgh Courier. The first homer discovered took place in a game against the New York Cubans in late May. The Afro-American described it as "a lusty 415 foot homerun into the left field stands by Josh Gibson." It was hit off Carranza Howard in a 5-0 Homestead victory. The longball took a rest until mid-June when the Newark Eagles came to town, "A crowd of 8,367 fans saw Buck Leonard's towering clout over the right field wall jar Lefty Hill loose from his magic which, until that moment, had been sufficient to retire 12 Grays in a row for the first four frames." The Grays solved the mystery of Hill and took the day 7-2. Several weeks later both Josh and Buck got into the action. The Baltimore Elite Giants came down the road for a double header. In the first Bill Byrd was victimized, "The feature blow of the game was Josh Gibson's 430-foot 2-run homer in the first inning." Buck had a homer of his own in the nightcap, a 368-foot line drive shot off Tom Glover. There was a power shortage in August, the next home run being in early September by Johnny Davis of the Newark Eagles. It was the only one by a visitor in the Negro Leagues. Later in the month Josh Gibson closed out the slugging with a "420 foot homer in the fifth inning," one of fourteen hits the Grays had on the day against Baltimore.
Josh and Buck combined to hit five home runs in Griffith, and adding Johnny Davis
pushes the total to six. A closer examination shows that the Senator's only Griffith
home run was an inside-the-park job. This means that the Negro National League hit out
as many baseballs as did the American League. Equal power? Not even. Due to a tie,
the American League played 78 games in Griffith that year. The six home runs hit by the
Negro Leaguers were combed from 21 game descriptions. Four other games are known only
by their final scores. Without doubt a few more games are completely lost to time.
What would Gibson and Leonard done in the majors? We can only guess...
A Reconstruction of the 1945 Homestead Grays Season
Notes: Week refers to the date of the paper that reported the game. If two papers ran coverage on different dates, then the earlier is given. Only games with finals are listed. Games scheduled but not verified as played are ignored. Contests against Kansas City, Birmingham and Chicago are against Negro American League teams and should perhaps be judged as exhibitions. No games were reported the week of July 28 due to East-West (All Star) Game coverage.
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