Babe Ruth was the white Josh Gibson

Sixty years ago today, baseball legend Josh Gibson died of a stroke at the age of 35. For four years Gibson had carried with him a brain tumor that he'd refused to have operated upon, fearing that he might emerge a vegetable for the rest of his life. The stroke that killed him was no doubt a result of this tumor, although it also was probably fueled by the drug and alcohol abuse that plagued Gibson's last years, abuse that was in part an attempt to medicate his debilitating headaches.

The tragedy of Josh Gibson's death is compounded by it's timing - just three months before Jackie Robinson began his inaugural season with the Dodgers. With all the controversy surrounding Barry Bonds and his catching Babe Ruth and then pursuing Hank Aaron's career home-run record, it's worth remembering that Gibson is believed to have hit close to 800 home runs in his lifetime. These home runs were never officially tallied, and don't appear in any record books. Nevertheless, baseball's true home run king is most likely a man who never had a single at-bat in the major leagues, a man destined to be remembered in baseball history as the black Babe Ruth. On this day at least, it seems we should try to think of it as the other way around.