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Posted By: Jodi Birkholm

Mooney Gibson was from my hometown of London, Ontario. After all these years, still the best ballplayer to come out of our town of 450,000. It was less than 1/10th the size back when George was with the 1909 Pirates. In London, we call him "Mooney", but the encyclopedias list him as "Moon". He seemed to prefer his birth name, though, as he would only ever sign "Geo. Gibson" in a beautifully-flowing hand:




Edited to add a few thoughts:

As many of you already know, Gibson was also originally interviewed by Larry Ritter for his wonderful "Glory of Their Times" project. I don't know why, but his chapter was not originally included in the publication of that book. It did, however appear in later editions, along with a couple of other players excluded from the first edition.

I had the pleasure of interviewing a few real old-timers who were managed by Gibson in the early 1930's. Howdy Groskloss told me that Gibson was a "backwards" man with little education and even less patience for rookie players. He preferred the tutelage of Jewel Ens, who he said was much more kind-hearted. Ben Sankey, however, said that he enjoyed playing under Gibson.