First published in Pittsburgh City Paper, August 10, 2022. By Sylvia Rhor Samaniego
When Ernest “Pud” Gooden died in 1934, The Pittsburgh Courier lamented the loss of “one of the greatest young ball players that the Pittsburgh district ever produced.” The paper eulogized “that prince of Goodfellows” whose “sinewy arm could throw with the accuracy of a rifle” and whose “hawk-like eyes could solve the cleverest pitchers’ most deceptive deliveries.”
Gooden played ball for the biggest teams in the Negro Leagues, including Pittsburgh’s Homestead Grays, the Toledo Tigers, and the Detroit Stars.
But if you were to make a pilgrimage to Gooden’s grave today, you would be hard-pressed to find a place to lay a baseball in honor of this sports legend. Gooden is buried in an unmarked plot in Monongahela Cemetery.
The same is true of Sam “Lefty” Streeter, who Satchel Paige called the best pitcher he had ever known, as well as Emmett “Scotty” Bowman, the one-time Philadelphia Giant who pitched in the sandlots and barnstormed with the best. Their names shared rosters with the greats — Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard, and Cool Papa Bell. But despite their fame, Streeter, Bowman, and dozens of other Negro Leaguers are buried in cemeteries throughout Southwestern Pennsylvania, with no markers to tell us their names, much less their stories.
The Josh Gibson Foundation wants to right this wrong.
