Near the top of a sloping hillside at the northern end of the sprawling 300-acre Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburgh, the modest marker of Negro Leagues baseball slugger Josh Gibson is not even visible from the asphalt roadside at the bottom of the hill.
There is a small sign by the side of the road informing as to the location of Gibson’s grave, but you have to climb the hill to get a look at his 16-inch x 22-inch surface-level gravestone.
The engraving on Gibson’s marker simply reads:
JOSH GIBSON
1911–1947
LEGENDARY BASEBALL PLAYER
The year 1947 marked the end for Gibson but served as a new beginning for baseball. The year also provided the first reference point in the Pittsburgh Opera’s recent production of The Summer King, based on the symbolic life and tumultuous times of the mythical slugging legend, Josh Gibson.
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