Word: joshing
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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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...
Idol of these happy fans is Catcher Josh (for Joshua) Gibson, a hulking 215-pounder with features vaguely suggestive of a very dark Babe Ruth. Sportswriters like Shirley Povich of the Washington Post maintain that Josh Gibson would be worth his weight in gold to any white ball club. The immortal Walter Johnson once valued Gibson...
Tongue Sandwich. At bat, Josh Gibson has a peculiar habit: he rolls up his tongue and sandwiches it, like a hot dog, between his lips. Thus fortified, he can swat a ball a country mile. In 1938, playing against the Memphis Red Sox, he connected for four home runs in a single game. In 1930, in Monessen, Pa., he smashed a homer officially measured at 513 ft.* In a recent doubleheader at Griffith Stadium, he hit three home runs, one for a distance of 485 ft. Last week Gibson led both Negro leagues with a batting average...
Unlike famed but fading Pitcher Satchel Paige, Negro baseball's No. 1 attraction, Josh Gibson is no gaudy eccentric. He drives no cerise roadster, makes no startling statements about a strict diet of fried foods-and, accordingly, receives no $40,000 a year. Josh's salary is $750 a month, plus bonuses that are paid on a hit-or-miss basis. But Josh Gibson has come close to causing an international incident...
...fifth and newest member is Bible-spouting Josh Lee, 51, defeated last fall for re-election to the U.S. Senate from Oklahoma. Lee last week was inspecting air routes and bases in South America...