On this day in baseball history

[El Supremo]

On this day in 1937, The Sporting News reports that catcher Josh Gibson of the Negro League’s Homestead Grays hit a ball two feet from the top of the facade of Yankee Stadium, 580 feet from home plate. If Negro League records were kept alongside those of the National and American Leagues, Gibson’s home run would eclipse Mickey Mantle’s record 565-foot home run hit off Chuck Stobbs in Washington’s Griffith Stadium on April 17, 1953 as the longest ever hit. This is not the only record Gibson might hold, and possibly not the only record for distance. Some credit him with crushing a fair ball out of Yankee Stadium in 1934, which if true would make him the only player ever to accomplish that feat.

(snip)

In the early 1940s, Gibson was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He slipped into a coma, and upon regaining consciousness refused to allow doctors to operate. On January 20, 1947, when he was 35, Gibson suffered a fatal stroke in his bed after asking to see his baseball trophies. He died three months shy of Jackie Robinson’s debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers and the integration of the major leagues.

Gibson was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972 by the Committee on Negro Baseball Leagues.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/josh-gibson-hits-ball-580-feet-in-yankee-stadium

Maybe I shouldn't be so concerned about Barry Bonds and all the Juicers ruining the record books. The fact that blacks were kept out of the majors for half of their existence, has made such records corrupt anyway.