Stay Home With SABR: Alan Cohen, "Josh Gibson Blazes a Trail Through Big League Ballparks: 1930-46"

On September 2, 2024, the Clyde Sukeforth SABR Chapter in Northern New England hosted a virtual Zoom meeting. The guest speaker was Alan Cohen, who delivered a reprise of his recent SABR convention presentation on "Josh Gibson Blazes a Trail Through Big League Ballparks: 1930-1946."

Josh Gibson first set foot in a big-league park as a 19-year-old in 1930, as a member of the Homestead Grays. Over the course of the next 16 years, he hit at least one homerun in 17 of the big-league ballparks in which he played, including a very noteworthy homer in the Bronx. Gibson hit homers in more than 90 ballparks, large and small. His first Yankee Stadium homers came on September 27. The second of those shots was said to have gone completely out of the ballpark. The fact is that nobody had ever hit a home run to the distant left-center field bleachers before Gibson, and few after. Cohen also discusses how, although Gibson’s home run feats at big-league parks were impressive, his legend was cemented wherever he played.

Alan Cohen has been a member of SABR since 2011. He chairs the SABR Bio Project fact-checking committee, is an officer in the Connecticut Smoky Joe Wood Chapter, and is a datacaster (MiLB stringer) with the Hartford Yard Goats, Double-A affiliate of the Colorado Rockies. He volunteers with the Retrosheet Negro Leagues project and with SABR’s Negro League Committee. His biographies, game stories, and essays have appeared in more than 70 baseball-related publications. He has four children, nine grandchildren, and one great-grandchild, and resides in Connecticut with wife Frances, their cats Zoe and Ava, and their dog Buddy.

To learn more, visit SABR.org.

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