ESPN: Neyer: Did Josh Gibson hit one out of Yankee Stadium?

Neyer getting a well deserved mega-poosh from ESPN today…

It seems likely that if Gibson really had hit the ball completely out of the ballpark, somebody at the time would have written about it, or Gibson would have later bragged about it. But it also seems likely that Gibson’s 1930 home run (and perhaps the 1934 homer) ranks as one of the longest ever hit at Yankee Stadium, along with two blasts hit by Frank Howard (one of the strongest hitters ever), and a famous homer by Mickey Mantle in 1963 that came within a few inches of leaving the stadium well beyond right field.

Teammate Buck Leonard later said, “Nobody hit the ball as far as Gibson. I didn’t see the one he is supposed to have hit out of Yankee Stadium. But I saw him hit a ball one night in the Polo Grounds that went between the upper deck and lower deck and out of the stadium. Later the night watchman came in and asked, ‘Who hit the damn ball out there?’ He said it landed on the El. It must have gone 600 feet.”

...At some point the anecdotal evidence simply becomes overwhelming, even if we know some of the anecdotes are less than 100 percent “true.” I doubt that Josh Gibson ever hit a baseball completely out of old Yankee Stadium. But I don’t doubt for a minute that Gibson could hit a ball just about as far as anybody.

And from Rob’s sensational, hard-hitting, tracerific new book!...Excerpt: Thurman Munson and Carlton Fisk.