You can find several baseball murals across Pittsburgh. There’s the Legends of Pittsburgh mural beneath the Boulevard of the Allies at Ross Street. Roberto Clemente’s face is on the side of the Clemente Museum in Lawrenceville and Verdetto’s Bar & Restaurant on the North Side.
Soon, there will be another, this one of Hall of Famer Josh Gibson.
Pittsburgh artist Jeremy Raymer announced on his Instagram that he will paint Gibson on the side of Voodoo Brewery in Homestead. He also shared a preview of what the mural will look like when completed:
“Trigger finger has been itchy and stoked to start spraying this soon,” Raymer wrote on his post.
Raymer is the artist who did the Clemente mural on the North Side.
Voodoo Brewery is funding the project, and the Josh Gibson Foundation gave its approval for the concept.
It’s only fitting that Gibson’s mural will be in Homestead, where he led the Grays to two Negro League World Series in 1943 and 1944. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Gibson spent 10 of the 16 years of his legendary career with the Grays, where he became known as one of the greatest power hitters in the history of the game, a distinction he holds to this day.
Gibson passed away in January of 1947, while still in his playing career and a few months before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball.
He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame through the Negro Leagues Committee in 1972. He and his former Grays teammate, Buck Leonard, were the second and third Negro League players to be inducted to Cooperstown, only behind Satchel Paige in 1971.
There is currently a push to rename the Most Valuable Player award after Josh Gibson, which the Pirates have publicly supported.
