Sport: Josh the Basher

Though U.S. newspapers probably give more space to baseball than to any other sport, little of it goes to Josh Gibson, the Homestead Grays or Negro baseball in general. Yet colored ball could have been good copy at any time since 1885, when the first professional Negro nine was made up of waiters from Long Island's tony Argyle Hotel. To be acceptable as opponents for local semi-pros, they posed as Cubans, babbled gibberish on the field, called themselves the Cuban Giants.

Today Negro baseball has two major leagues: National and American. Each club plays 50 league games, 100 or more exhibition games...