The Legend Behind the Plate
The Josh Gibson Story
The Black Babe Ruth
A documentary about the greatest player who never made it to the big leagues.
“Josh Gibson was one of the best baseball players ever, a catcher who hit as many as 800 home runs and was voted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972, the second year that Negro Leaguers were inducted.
His life off the field was less well known. More often than not, Gibson has been characterized as a drunk and a drug user who was haunted by not making it to the major leagues with Jackie Robinson. Gibson was 35 when he died Jan. 20, 1947, three months before Robinson first took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
A new documentary, however, not only tells of Gibson’s legendary baseball accomplishments — historians and former players debate whether he actually hit a home run out of the old Yankee Stadium in 1934 — but it also tries to make the case that his drinking and apparent demons were a result of the brain tumor that eventually killed him.”
—Sean D. Hamill, The New York Times
HONORS
Telly Award - Television Documentary (2010)
Official Selection - National Baseball Hall of Fame’s Baseball Film Festival (2010)
Premiered at the Castillo Theatre in New York, NY