This year's All-Star Break is about to begin, with Major League Baseball holding its first ever Swingman Classic tomorrow. The game will showcase players from Division One programs at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).
Those players are getting the kind of national recognition that most of the Black players who were on the diamond a century ago never saw. One of them was named Ernest Gooden. He played for teams here in Pittsburgh that helped define the game as we see it today.
Gooden died an early death from a heart attack and his grave in North Braddock will finally get a marker Friday thanks to the Josh Gibson Foundation. They're setting out to place markers on the graves of Negro Leagues players who took the field here in Pittsburgh.
Sean Gibson, executive director of the Josh Gibson Foundation, spoke with 90.5 WESA's Priyanka Tewari about the initiative.
Tewari: Sean, thank you so much for being here.
Gibson: Good morning. And thank you for having me. You know, I wanted to say something. Your introduction was right on time because I will actually be at the All-Star Game attending the HBCU Classic this Friday. You know, right now, as a percentage of African-American baseball players, Major League Baseball is very low right now. And so this is an opportunity for these African-American athletes, you know, to showcase their talents in front of executives and scouts.
Now, that actually begs the question, why are there so few Black players in baseball?
That's a great question. A lot of kids here in the city, they gravitate to football. You know, you have a winning professional team like the Steelers, you know, don't always win in Super Bowls, but they're competitive. Then you come to the Pittsburgh Pirates. We [haven't] had a winning season in a long time. So it's just a sport that, you know, right now a lot of African-Americans are playing.
So let's talk about the Negro Leagues. For somebody who is, who may not be aware of what that even means or why is that significant, can you tell us a little bit about that?
You're in a great city, the perfect city for the Negro Leagues. I mean, you know, Pittsburgh, two greatest teams, the Crawfords and the Grays. And, you know, we're going to talk about a great player today, Ernest Gooden, Pittsburgh was like the mecca of black baseball in that era. The 1935 Pittsburgh Crawfords team had five Hall of Famers on that team. And so when you talk about the Negro Leagues, you can't not talk about Pittsburgh because they were epic of black baseball back then.
So let's talk about Gooden and who is he and, you know, what is his family and his history in Pittsburgh.
He was born here in Pittsburgh on February 4th, in 1900, and he actually died very young, 34 years old. His family came here from Virginia. You know, like most people from down south will come here to find work. They lived in the Homewood area. And, you know, Gooden also attended Westinghouse High School. You know, he was not just a great baseball player. He also ran track as well. So, you know, he had a very short career with the Pittsburgh Keystones. And then he played a very, very short time with the Homestead Grays. His last year I should say in baseball was in 1923, and he played for several teams, Toledo, Cleveland and Detroit. But, you know, as we mentioned, his grave is unmarked here in the city of Pittsburgh.
I wanted to know why did you choose Gooden as the first grave marker? Because I believe that you plan to mark at least like 18 burial sites.
Yes. One of our committee members who was actually one of our partners is Vincent Ciaramella. He actually decided to go with Ernest Gooden first. You know, Vincent also wrote a book called The Greats in the Graveyard and basically it's a guide to the Negro Leagues and Winter Leagues baseball players and personalities buried in Allegheny County. It also has players that have markers and players who do not have markers. Last year, we celebrated Josh Gibson's 50th anniversary of Hall of Fame induction. A young man reached out to me and said, 'Hey, you know, your great-grandmother's gravesite's unmarked.' We never knew. You know, she died in 1930. She died giving birth to their twins. So Josh was a single father at age 19. And so I felt like, well, how many other players are out there and other family members out there that are unmarked and don't know that they're unmarked? We would love to. If anybody's listening, go to our Web site at JGFMemorialMarkers.org. If you see your family's name on there, please contact us.
Sean Gibson. He's the executive director of the Josh Gibson Foundation and the great grandson of Josh. Their foundation will be placing a grave marker on the grave of Ernest Gooden in North Braddock. Gooden, of course, played Negro League baseball in Pittsburgh. Sean, thank you so much for taking the time and speaking with me today.
I really appreciate you guys helping us out here; looking forward to a great event on Friday.
