August is traditionally the dead zone for art exhibits here in our nation’s capital, with most major museums and galleries withholding their new shows until after Labor Day. But one great American art form flourishes all summer long, even if our present-day local practitioners of it do not.
I speak, of course, of baseball.
The District of Columbia’s rich history in the game in the eight decades leading up to Jackie Robinson’s historic crossing of Major League Baseball’s racial barrier in 1947 gets a thorough, and thoroughly engrossing, going-over in two complementary exhibits on view at the Historical Society of Washington through Oct. 5.
“Separate and Unequaled: Black Baseball in the District of Columbia” is a collaboration between the Anacostia Community Museum and the Historical Society, while “Discover Greatness: An Illustrated History of the Negro Baseball Leagues” is a traveling exhibit organized by the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Mo.
With the Washington Nationals on the verge of finishing the season with the worst record in D.C. history ever — OK, maybe not, but they’re having a lousy summer any way you look at it — these shows of vintage photography, news clippings, uniforms, equipment and other memorabilia could be just the ticket to rekindle a frustrated hometown baseball lover’s faith.
Rewarding one’s faith is the job of the hero, after all, and these exhibits give us several. None, however, is greater than Josh Gibson, the legendary Negro League slugger often venerated as “the Black Babe Ruth.” His plaque at the baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., credits him with “almost 800 home runs in league and independent baseball,” laying bare the vagaries of record-keeping during Gibson’s 17-year career.
Baseball historians often have wondered how Gibson’s record would stack up against those of Babe Ruth or Hank Aaron, were a credible comparison possible. Certainly the anecdotal evidence suggests that Gibson, for whom 500-foot-plus homers were not an uncommon achievement, may well have been the preeminent slugger of all time. His teammate Satchel Paige reportedly called him “the greatest hitter who ever lived.” In 2003, reigning Major League home run record-holder Barry Bonds pointed out that Gibson hit 84 home runs in 1936 — 11 more homers than Bonds’s own single-season best tally.
The shows at the Historical Society boast a treasure trove of great photographs of Gibson and of the Homestead Grays, the Pittsburgh-and-Washington-based team with whom he began his Negro League career in 1930, stepping into a game for a catcher who suffered a hand injury during a night game against the Kansas City Monarchs. The Grays signed him the next day, and Gibson starting smacking balls out of the park with impressive regularity. There were reports that the Washington Senators and the Pittsburgh Pirates wanted to offer Gibson a tryout in the late ’30s, but sadly, the color line remained in place for another decade.
Gibson was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 1943, and in 1947, a stroke killed him when he was only 35 — mere months before Robinson played his first Major League game.
(If you go: “Separate and Unequaled: Black Baseball in the District of Columbia and Discover Greatness: An Illustrated History of the Negro Baseball Leagues”; Historical Society of the District of Columbia; Through Oct. 5; 801 K St. NW; free; 202-383-1850; www.historydc.org)
