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(upbeat music) - Welcome to Business Forward.

I'm your host, Matt George.

Joining me tonight, Sean Gibson.

Sean is the executive director of the Josh Gibson foundation.

Josh Gibson was one of the best all around baseball players of all time, he could hit the ball a mile.

Welcome Sean.

- Hey, George, thanks for having me, Matt.

- Well, I mean, we've got a lot to talk about.

I'm a huge baseball fan.

This is the only time I've ever done this show wearing a T-shirt, but this was, this shirt commemorates Negro Leagues' 100 year anniversary last year, so we're in 101 years now, but what does that mean to you?

- Well, say this is, well, first of all, it's been a long time.

So it just tells you how long the Negro Leagues has been around.

As you mentioned, last year was the 100 year anniversary.

It was founded February 13th, 1920.

And so, you know, it was a bad year, last year, of course, 'cause of COVID, we weren't able to get a chance to do much.

So we're hoping to do more things in 2021, which we're calling centennial 101 but it just tells you the rich tradition and the rich history of the Negro League that's been around for a very, very long time.

- I mean, it's just some huge, huge names coming out of the Negro Leagues.

And I run a nonprofit here in town, in Peoria, Illinois, and a couple of years ago we had Dennis Biddle, he's from Milwaukee and he drove down and he talked to the kids about the Negro Leagues and the players he played with.

And he had stories about Josh Gibson.

Who's your great grandfather and a Satchel Paige.

I mean, if you go down the list of the best baseball players of all time, those guys are in there in those top three and five players of all time, if not number one.

- Oh yeah, definitely, I mean, you gotta, like you said, you got Josh, you got Satch, you got Buck Leonard, you got Oscar Charleston, you got Turkey Stearnes, and then we can go on and on and on.

But the most important thing is that you said, you know, some of you listeners may or may not know, but last year Major League Baseball made the announcement to integrate Negro League statistics into their record books.

And so, as you mentioned now, you know, Josh Gibson won't be considered our the greatest black baseball player, he'll be considered one of the greatest baseball players of all time, period.

And as you've mentioned, you know, they'll be in somebody's record books.

Josh will be ranked definitely in the top five in several categories and some as number one.

So it's very exciting to finally see that the recognition for the Negro Leagues is finally being paid off in Major League Baseball.

- I mean, it's how it should be.

I mean, these players were unbelievable and, you know, Josh Gibson was considered one of the best home run hitters of all time, he was the most feared Slugger.

I mean, there's stories and almost some of them become myths in a sense because you're sitting here going, that story's better than, whether it's true or not, it's unbelievable.

The stuff that you read about your great grandfather is unreal, is the best way to describe it.

- Yeah, like you said, some of the stories, I mean, you know, of course the one story you always hear about is that Josh hit the home run out of Yankee Stadium and we did some research on that, the ball didn't actually got out of Yankee Stadium, it hit, like, the top tier, but it's still the furthest ball ever hit in Yankee Stadium.

And it's funny, you know, because if you know the history of Josh and Babe, people always compare Josh, they use to always say, Josh is the black Babe Ruth.

And I'm like, well, no, Babe Ruth is the white Josh Gibson.

(laughing) And so, and you know, as far as I'm looking at it, he came in Babe Ruth's house and hit the furthest home run in the Yankee Stadium.

So, but you're right.

You can hear some of these mythical stories.

I mean, you're hearing stories about Cool Papa Bell, he was so fast that before he, he can turn off the lights in a room and be in a bed under the covers before it get dark, you know, things like that.

You know, that's really fast.

There's stories about Josh Gibson.

They had a game here in Pittsburgh and he had a home run and it was way up in the night, like, all the way up in the sky.

The next day they're playing in Philadelphia and all of a sudden the ball comes out the air and the guy catches the ball.

So you hear a lot of these mythical stories, but it just tells you, I think these stories, it just tells you the talent.

It talks about, it's really expressing the talent of the Negro League Baseball players.

- And I think, you know, I wanna get to your foundation and I also wanna talk about the mission and the purpose of it, because really it's about kids.

And when we had Dennis Biddle come down, I mean, it was just, I went to a sports show in Chicago and I saw him at a booth and I went up and talked to him.

I ended up talking to him for 45 minutes and I said, you know what, I don't even care what I pay you, it's worth it, your stories alone.

And there's hundreds and hundreds of these stories, thousands of stories and they came down and, you know, I run a children's home and the stories that he told these kids had an opportunity to look right at a, you know, a Legend's eyes and say, I have, I can dream now, I can dream of being a baseball player.

And a lot of these kids have never picked up a mitt.

- Yeah, you're right, I mean, there's not too many players left.

So you figure, like I said, we're already celebrated 100 year anniversary last year.

So it's not too many guys left, very few that are still living and we have a chance to actually interview or speak with, or have them present their story.

It's always great because again, some of these guys are up in age, the ones that are still living and this history will probably be gone another 10 years for sure, at least from a player's perspective.

And so that's why myself as a family descendant, Satchel Paige's family, Buck Leonard, Leon Day.

We have our own foundation to teach the history of these great Negro League Baseball players and that's where we're going.

- And when you talk about Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige, I mean, this was before the Roberto Clemente's, the Jackie Robinson's the, because I know Larry Doby talks so favorably about all of the players that played back then.

And there was just so many instrumental Negro League players and black players, Curt flood and you just, you can go down the list to even today's players, but being a family member of somebody like Josh Gibson, I mean, do you wake up and just, are you just proud to do an interview like this because you get to talk about your own family.

- Very proud, I'm very proud of, you know, my grandfather, Josh Gibson Jr. who also played in the Negro Leagues, he played for the Homestead Grays the last year of his existence, 1949, 1950.

But I'm very proud because my grandfather has always said, all you have is your last name.

And, you know, I take heart to that because you know, our last name is very well recognized and so for him, for myself, it's an honor to be able to carry on the legacy of Josh Gibson, for me to be the forefront.

Now, again, I do have family members, I'm the spokesperson, but it's not just me, I do have four other, I mean, three other family members that I report to on a daily basis that oversees the foundation as well.

But, you know, I will say this, Matt, the great thing about it is, you get a chance to meet a lot of great family members.

Descendants, black and white Major League Baseball players, as well as Negro League Baseball players' families.

So we have a close knit group and we all share our stories and share our concerns of some of the things that's happening.

And so it was great, I mean, you know, I'm very proud to be able to be able to share my story and share not just Josh Gibson stories, but the Negro Leagues in general.

I mean, we had two great teams right here in Pittsburgh.

- [Matt] Right.

- The Homestead Grays and the Pittsburgh Croppers, and a lot of talent was on our team.

So, you know, so every day, you know, I wake up, it's a blessing.

- [Matt] Right.

- And it's a blessing to be able to do something like this.

- You know, it's funny, I was, I actually have, I'm a huge baseball historian.

I think you can tell by the comments that I make back and forth with you about the foundation and of the respect that I have for the game and for the Negro Leagues but what was, what's really cool is, I actually have autographs of Buck Leonard and I have Satchel Paige, I do not have Josh Gibson, but I have a lot of the players that played.

And they're some of my most prized autographs.

And, you know, you mentioned Babe Ruth earlier, Yankee Stadium's a big stadium.

And if you think about the players that played through there, Mickey Mantle, 536 total home runs, and you think about Joe DiMaggio and Roger Maris and all those guys that hit home runs there and your great grandfather hit one a mile long.

And that was before they even had the tape measure.

The, you know- - They said that, well, this distance is supposedly 580 feet.

(laughing) - That's crazy.

- Right.

- I mean, that's crazy.

To put it in perspective, there's some fences in left field that are, you know, 320, 325, so it's almost going over two stadium walls.

- Yeah.

- Crazy.

So tell me about the Josh Gibson Foundation.

Because again, this has to do with kids and this show, Business Forward, is not only business, but we really pound community and how important it is for community and sports in community and kids growing up and the people that we have on this show, there's a common theme because athletes and kids become adults and they become integrated in your community.

So tell us about the foundation.

- Yeah, so I'm the executive director of the Josh Gibson Foundation.

We're actually located in the city here in Pittsburgh, but my grandfather, Josh Gibson Jr., actually came up with the idea of starting the foundation.

And at that time it was more or less his preserving his father's legacy.

He thought the best way to do that was through the young generation, through the youth.

And so at that time, we started off strictly just a baseball program.

That was our first year and I got into college in 1995 and I got involved with the foundation, once I got involved, I started adding educational components and doing some of the fundraising and things like that.

So we have grown over the past 17 years, we have over 300 kids in our program.

We have three different locations.

We're a partner of the city of Pittsburgh parks and rec department, as well as the city of Pittsburgh public schools.

And so, actually, coming up this, not this weekend, next weekend, August 27th to the 29th is our Josh Gibson youth classic 12U tournament.

So it's been very exciting to serve the city and serve the youth.

We give off scholarships to inner city kids.

We have a curriculum in the schools that's called BOSA and that stands for Business of Sports Academy and what that does, Matt, it teaches the kids the business side of sports.

I mean, so many young people today, when they're involved in sports, they all wanna become a professional athlete and that's their number one goal.

We understand that but what am I trying to tell, argue, is that, you know, whether you make it or not, you still have to have a career to fall back on.

And so it's based off of sports media, sports marketing, sports law, sports sales, and sports events.

It's actually a college credit course to get them a jumpstart into their career.

And so we've been very excited and blessed, of course, the last year was rough year for us 'cause of the pandemic and hopefully wherever we have our events this year, we have several events planned.

Like I mentioned, our class is in August, this two weeks.

Then we have our big fundraiser, which is our black tie gala and our symposium, August 29th and 30th.

So we're hoping with this new virus coming out, we can still have these events.

Being a small nonprofit, you know, everything, every little bit counts and so we're hoping to be able to raise some money this year - Yeah and I think the impact that you have is not only the business side, but you know, a lot of times people say sports, it's really about the game, but really, it's about manners.

It's about taking care of each other, it's about teamwork.

It's about all of those things and you know, from, here in Peoria, Illinois, we have two famous baseball players.

We have Joe Girardi and Jim Tomey and those guys are from here and love and respect the game of baseball.

But on the show, I like to integrate a lot of sports, a lot of athletes, we had Curly Boo Johnson, who was on the Globe Trotters for 18 years and he has camps that he comes back with here in Peoria.

And it's really about getting kids these experiences and dreams and the last, couple of weeks ago, I had Sean Livingston on, Sean played with Steph Curry, won three NBA championships and he came back for a camp and very similar to what you do.

You give these kids an opportunity to dream and I think that's the most important thing, it's not just sports.

- It is bigger than sports, as we all know, sports is only take you about so far, but you can use it as a avenue to get out your neighborhood, get out of your city, get a athletic scholarship to further your education.

I used to always tell people, it doesn't matter how good you are in sports, if he doesn't, if you don't have the, as we call it, books mart, it's not gonna matter.

And so, that's what we're really focused on, education.

We have our afterschool program for our kids and we focus on that big time because I don't care how good you are, you still need that education.

And as you mentioned, that's the main focal point for our foundation is that, yes, we are, you know, I think sometimes, people, two things they get us mixed up with, right?

One thing, they feel like we're just strictly a baseball organization, that's the first thing, which we're not and the second thing is, what I hear a lot, is that they think it's just for black kids and I say, no.

And when I tell people that I say, well, let me just tell you this ma'am or sir, if it was strictly just for black kids, I'll be doing the same thing that Kenesaw Mountain Landis did to Josh Gibson and other great Negro League Baseball players.

And so those are two questions I get asked a lot, is it just baseball program and is it just for black kids?

And so our program is not just baseball, we have academics as well, components, as well as other things and it's definitely not just for black kids.

It's for all races, and whoever wants to be served through the Josh Gibson Foundation, we welcome them with open arms.

- Yeah, I'm glad you said that because it is about kids and it is about community and in our age that we're at now, it's our job to take care of these kids.

It doesn't matter whether you're black or white, we have to take care of our kids.

And I'm glad you said that.

I'm gonna segue into, you mentioned judge Landis and you know, he was a commissioner and he, the history of that, the short version is that he didn't allow any Negro League players into Major League Baseball, but the MVP award is named after him.

So you are right now, on a mission to change the MVP award for Major League Baseball to the Josh Gibson MVP award.

Is that correct?

- Yeah, that's correct.

And for your listeners, so as you've mentioned briefly, so Kenesaw Mountain Landis was the commissioner at the time who denied not African Americans, actually over 3,400 African-Americans an opportunity to play in the majors.

And so last year, three former MVP players came out and spoke on this, Mike Smith, Terry Pendleton and Barry Larkin came out and spoke on it and felt as though that his name should be removed off of the MVP award.

And so they took a vote, Baseball Writer's Association took a vote and in October of last year, his name was removed.

And so when they gave the MVP award out last year, it had no MVP name on it.

And so how we come into play on this, it wasn't something where I just woke up one day and said, hey, Josh's name should be on this.

Last summer I was reading an article about the MVP, about Barry Larkin and Terry Pendleton and Mike Smith wanna remove it.

And in the article, it mentions the three names they're considering renaming the MVP award after, award after.

It was Branch Rickey, Frank Robinson and Josh Gibson.

We had no clue that Josh was even a mention in this.

- [Matt] Wow.

- But once we read that, I went back to my board of directors and we have another special events committee and said, hey, I don't know what you think, but we just found ourselves in a race, let's see how we can win it.

And so that's how the campaign actually started 'cause people felt, I think sometimes, people feel like we just woke up one day and said, hey, let's have Josh's name on there.

That was, we didn't even think about it until we read the article.

And so it's been a great campaign.

This is not a Major League Baseball decision.

It's a decision that's made through the Baseball Writers Association and so we're hoping that it'll happen before, during the world series, 'cause I think during the world series is when they give out the MVP award.

And I, you know, there's been some talks about not having a name on it at all, just call it the MVP award.

My suggestion is this, whether it's Josh or somebody else, I just, I believe it should have a name on because it had a name on it already, but we're fighting for Josh, of course.

And before I close, Matt, the thing with our mission is, is that it's not just about Josh Gibson, as I mentioned earlier, he denied 3,400 men the opportunity.

So if Josh's name was on the MVP award, it'll be representing those 3,400 men who were denied the opportunity, so it's not just about Josh Gibson, it's about the whole Negro Leagues, the black players that were denied the opportunity to play in the major.

- Yeah and I, I'm hoping, I've seen a lot of interviews that you've done and on TV and those are usually two minute interviews.

Sometimes you'll do a podcast or 10 minute interview.

This is a 30 minute interview and I'm hoping this 30 minute interview is actually seen by the writers and has an impact because it should be the Josh Gibson award in my opinion and I'm not saying that just because you're here, because when you go through those 3,400 names, it gives you chills, I mean, that is what baseball is.

It makes you think of the Willie Mays and the Hank Aaron, and the guys that actually did get to play in the majors because of the 3,400.

- And it's sad to say, but it that's how life was back then.

Right?

And so our story, I've done several interviews and several articles for ESPN Undefeated.

And for us, it's more of a redemption, poetic justice, right?

And so how ironic would it be for a person like Josh Gibson to replace the same man who denied him the opportunity to playing in the majors.

And so that's our story, that's our mission.

To learn more about our MVP campaign, you can go to JG20MVP.com, to our website.

These are our campaign shirts, they're all over social media from celebrities to local celebrities to national celebrities that have been supporting this campaign.

There's no, we have a petition on the website as well.

There's no set number of signatures we're looking for, it's just, just get the writers, the voters to know that there are a lot of supporters out there for Josh, but, you know, hopefully when the time has come, that Josh's name will be on the MVP award.

- Yeah, very cool.

So you know how, like, there's just certain players that just look cool.

Josh Gibson was one of those guys, you know what I mean?

I mean, Roberto Clemente was just, it was one of those guys that just, that looks cool.

Aaron Judge today just looks cool.

And those old Grays uniforms are some of the neatest looking uniforms in all of baseball ever.

- Yeah, the thing with Josh too, is that he had his sleeves rolled up too, his sleeves would be rolled up.

So you can see his, so Josh has some big forearms, you know, he's very muscular built and my grandfather, Josh Gibson Jr. used to always have this slogan around his pictures and it said, no steroids, just milk.

You know, he's coming from a small country town, Buena Vista, Georgia, population of like 2,000 people.

So, you know, and then they moved up north, here to Pittsburgh, so that's all he knew, was baseball, but yeah, they had some nice uniforms, but I will say this, Matt, I don't know about playing those uniforms now, if you see those uniforms, they're actually wool, they're wool uniforms.

And so these guys played two or three games a day in the hot sun in these uniforms.

- Yeah and you know, what's funny is, I have a picture of me when I, I'm 51 and I have a picture of me as a kid playing when I was six years old and in our little league team, we had wool uniforms, - Really?

- Yeah, wool uniforms.

So, you know, I'm a stat guy, I just love things like this but you know, he batted 461 in his rookie year.

What?

- So I'm glad you brought that up because, about the statistics and so that's what I was saying is that, so John Thorne, who was the historian for Major League Baseball, right?

And he's been having conversations with the families of how the statistics are gonna work and when they'll be incorporated to the statistics.

And I just came out and asked John, you know, I said, hey man, listen, this is, it's gonna be a lot of changes when they include these Negro League Baseball players into the record books and I said, is America, basically, is white America, I said, is white America ready for this?

Because it's gonna be some, it's gonna shake up the record books.

And as you mentioned, 461, I mean, Josh, you know, his batting averages, now, before I get into that, I'll go back.

As we all know, Josh hit a lot of home runs and this was the number one question that was being asked back in December.

His 800 home runs will not count into the Major League record books.

So he would not be the new home run king and the reason being is because they're only counting his home runs in Negro League play, which is about 300 or 200 and something.

This is not a lot.

Well, I shouldn't say it's not a lot, it's not enough to get him where he needs to be.

- Right.

- And the other whole runs are based off of his barnstorming, his Latin, they played in Latin countries and his exhibition games.

And so my argument to Gary Ashwill's team is, and all those guys, I said, listen, it ain't Josh's fault that he had to play over there, if Kenesaw let him in.

- [Matt] Right.

- So why y'all hurting Josh from playing or hurting these players for playing where they had to play.

So that is, I wanted to make that clear.

He would not be the new home run king, he would not be.

- Well, he will be in a lot of people's eyes because it actually is a fun argument now.

- Yeah.

- I mean, for a baseball historian like myself, it is fun because when you talk about in 1934, he had 69 home runs.

That's a lot of home runs pre steroid era, right?

- Right, yeah.

I mean, 84 home runs one year, 69 one year, he got some huge numbers when it comes to home runs.

And you know, and I will say this, you're a historian, I mean, where I look at it like this, a ball is a ball, is a bat's a bat, a pitcher's a pitcher you know?

And the one thing I will say is that, when I talked to some interviews and they try to discredit the Negro Leagues and I used to always say, what made you think that the Major League Baseball players were so great?

Like, everybody in the majors wasn't good.

And everybody, and they knew he wasn't good, they had their stars in the majors and they had their stars in the Negro League, but they always try to discredit the Negro League statistics and say, oh, well, they played in smaller stadiums or they didn't have the greatest talent.

I'm like, neither did Major League Baseball.

- [Matt] Right.

- So, yeah.

You know, they make it seem like everybody that played in the majors was a superstar back then.

- Right.

Well, last question, what would Josh Gibson say to the kids today to keep playing ball, what would he say?

- I will give you two answers on that.

The first answer would be, just based off this climate that we're in right now, you know, with the whole Black Lives Matters movement.

There's a lot of, you know, racial injustice going on and I think about my grandfather a lot when I hear this question because he's probably looking down and wondering and wondering why his great grandson is seeing or going through some of the same things that he went through 80 years ago, he probably would've never imagined the things that he went through, not being able to go to certain restaurants, dealing with racism, not being able to go to certain hotels.

- [Matt] Yeah.

- Use certain bathrooms, certain water fountains.

And today, you know, it's not that deep, but we're still going through some of the same things that he went through as a young man.

And so that's first and foremost, and I will say this, as far as the kids, you know, we're all about education.

You know, Josh had a ninth grade education, but that was only made because he started playing baseball at a very young age and he had to support his family.

But he would definitely tell the youth today is that, you know, one, stay in school, do your work, whatever you do, work hard, you know, don't ever give up.

And just, the one thing I try to teach kids is about the Negro Leagues is just that, if you look, if you follow through the Negro Leagues and you look at all the obstacles, they had to endure just to be successful and just follow your dream, you know, listen to your parents, follow your dream.

But the main thing is just stay in school and do your work.

- Okay, well, I wanna tell you, this was a great interview.

I loved having you on, I appreciate it.

Josh Gibson for MVP.

Google it, go to the, go to your foundation.

The Josh Gibson Foundation.

Sean, thank you for coming on, I appreciate it.

- Thank you Matt.

- I'm Matt George and this is another episode of Business Forward.

(upbeat music) - Thank you for tuning in to Business Forward, brought to you by PNC.