Fellow Bucs Dugout contributor Brett Barnett wrote recently about a section of PNC Park known as Legacy Square, which at one time featured a robust area set aside to honor Pittsburgh’s connection with the great history of Negro Leagues baseball but later was reconfigured and several sizable statues were removed.
One of those statues honored the legacy of Hall of Famer Josh Gibson, whose connection to Pittsburgh dates back to the early 1920s when his family relocated from Georgia when Josh was still a pre-teen. Legend has it that Gibson got his start in organized baseball at the age of 16 when he joined a team of Gimbels employees – he worked as an elevator operator at Gimbels department store — and a few years later he joined a semipro team in Pittsburgh known as the Crawford Colored Giants.