In his “Author’s Note” to Pretend the Ball is Named Jim Crow, Dorian Hairston details why he wrote a collection of poems about Josh Gibson and how baseball, with its “arbitrary yet clearly defined unwritten rules” mirrors society at large, especially in relation to issues of race, class, and gender. These “rules” organize the game, and they play a large role in how individuals approach game. Yet, these “rules” change over time, they evolve and slip away, paving the way for new “rules” that help it to grow. As Hairston puts it, “One of the most beautiful aspects of the game, however, is its capacity for change and its ability to lead American on a similar path.”

While baseball serves as the metaphor for the nation throughout Hairston’s collection, the narrative itself centers on Josh Gibson, “the greatest catcher to ever play the game of baseball.” It’s a collection that, like so many important works of literature and art, illuminate the spaces and individuals purposefully left in the shadows. Hairston lays this out when he writes about the dual lists of Negro League and “official” baseball records. Hairston states, “One list is spoken and understood by all to include the full spectrum of folks who have controlled the lore of the game. The other is written down, and though in black ink, it leaves out anything Black. This is just one of the many injustices in this story, and by no means the most painful.”

The thread of erased history permeates the collection from the opening poem “Manifesto for Black Baseball Players” where Gibson tells Black baseball players to “break into record books,” thus turning “more than just they ink black.” In this statement, Gibson places the gauntlet down, calling out the obfuscation of records set by Black players during the Negro League. Yet, the “written down” list endures in memory and collective consciousness, providing the “official” historical record of baseball. While some may view this discussion as nothing more than sports fans getting riled up over who they think the best player or team is, these dueling lists aren’t trivial because they represent deeply ingrained biases in the collective narratives we tell ourselves and pass down through our educational systems.

Gibson’s poem begins the collection, and Hairston ends the book with “The Walk Off,” a poem in his own voice as he stands at “Josh’s Grave.” At the grave, Hairston implores Gibson to “Get up” and play catch. Hairston wants to see Gibson, to talk to him, to interact with “the greatest” to ever play the game. Gibson doesn’t arise from the grave, glove in hand, ready to toss the ball around with Hairston, but he is there. He lives. As Lillian Smith put it in The Journey, “Death can kill a man, that is all it can do. It cannot end his life because of memory.” Memory keeps Gibson alive. Memory allows Hairston to commune with Gibson, not physically through a catch in the glow of the setting sun but spiritually through Gibson’s stories and records.

However, those stories could go away. They could recede back onto the shelves, collecting dust in a low lit archive somewhere inaccessible, stored away for later generations to hopefully rediscover. Hairston points out that this happened to Gibson. As he converses with Gibson, Hairston tells the ballplayer how he came to write the book.

My high school librarian
Found the only book in the whole school
That mentioned your name
And my English teacher told me to write about you

The library at Hairston’s school contained one book that even mentioned Gibson, probably among a few on the subject of baseball. In my own childhood, I gobbled up everything I could about baseball, and I do not recall any book that I had talking about the Negro League. The story didn’t exist in the narrative I consumed. Gibson, along with Satchel Paige, Rube Foster, Buck O’Neil, and countless others, didn’t exist on the page. They were invisible, floating over the page, out of reach because I didn’t know they were there or what to even look for in the ether.

Hairston did know, though. He had a librarian to point him to Gibson. He had an English teacher who said he should write about Gibson. He knew people who knew Gibson, who in their own ways kept Gibson’s memory alive, thus keeping Gibson alive in a small way in his community. Others have kept Gibson alive, but everyone doesn’t know everyone else. We only have so much capacity to know others and to meet others, and only so much capacity to dive deep into history, literature, and other fields that will expand our knowledge. Thus, the stories we find and share with others become important because those stories shape the world around us.

When legislatures seek to limit those stories, or to shape them to fit a false narrative that seeks to control. We’ve had this for ages, look at the Lost Cause. Placing individuals on the dusty shelves of history is nothing new. It’s a way of making the visible invisible, of ending an individual’s life because the individual gets forgotten, lost among the other individuals packed onto the shelves of time, waiting to get pulled down in order to contribute to human existence.

Pretend the Ball is Named Jim Crow keeps Gibson alive. It is a small book that leads elsewhere. Over the past two years, Bob Kendrick, the President of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, has done the same not just through the museum in Kansas City but also through the MLB the Show video game franchise where Negro League players like Paige and Gibson have storylines and players and play as them on the field. Kendrick’s narration in these storylines illuminates the history that gathered dust. It contains the “full spectrum” of baseball’s history and its importance. It speaks to the nation, again using baseball as the means of conveying the nation’s history and its dueling lists.

If you haven’t picked up Hairston’s Pretend the Ball is Named Jim Crow, I highly suggest you go buy it. Plus, go pick up MLB the Show 24 because spring training is almost over. What are your thoughts? As usual, let me know in the comments below. Make sure to follow me on Twitter @silaslapham.