NILES - Brent Stevens heard the distress in the voice of his younger sister Amanda.
As a 16-year-old high school student, she read an American history book stating some not-so-flattering things about her great-grandfather.
Seven years ago Amanda read about George Herman Ruth, better known as legendary Major League Baseball player Babe Ruth.
"My sister came back home crying. She was reading an American History book saying he had hit 60 home runs and 714 in his career, but that he was also an alcoholic and a womanizer," said Stevens, 31, during a telephone interview. "That's not an accurate portrayal of the Babe."
Today, he and Sean Gibson, great-grandson of Negro League legend Josh Gibson Sr., are carrying on the legacies of their great-grandfathers with a traveling road show called "Josh and the Babe," which evolved last spring. The two display a painting showing a mythical meeting between Gibson and Ruth.
"Over time, they started sharing thoughts about the possible 'what-if' had Josh and Babe had the chance to meet and interact together, since there is no known record of these two baseball greats having ever crossed paths in person," according to www.joshgibson.org. "Those conversations led to this painting, by renowned artist Bill Purdom, which reflects a hypothetical interaction between these two home run superstars."
"Even though these guys haven't had a chance to meet, there's an educational piece to it," Sean said. "We're teaching diversity. We have an era where black and white players didn't play against each other. But now today, we can talk about it and the importance of diversity, segregation and things like that."
Sean and Stevens, who resides in Atlanta, met in 2004 at the wedding of a mutual friend.
"Last year, we decided to come together and do a project," Sean said, who appeared at Tuesday's Mahoning Valley Scrappers' Negro League Night. "Since our great-grandfathers have always been compared to each other, it would be perfect to finally do something to put these two on canvas and teach the history of both of the guys."
Stevens said he never anticipated an evening out would evolve into this project.
"I knew he was going to be there, but I didn't anticipate spending so much time with him talking about our great-grandfathers. It was a pretty enjoyable evening," Stevens said.
Sean, who is the executive director of the Josh Gibson Foundation, wants to tell the stories passed down from his grandfather Josh Gibson Jr., a batboy in the Negro League and for his father Josh Gibson Sr.
"They're the stories inside of baseball," he said. "Outside of baseball, Josh Gibson was a young man and Josh Gibson's wife had given birth to twin kids, but died during childbirth.
"He's a 19-year-old kid who lost his wife. It's a joy and pain when you have two twin sibling kids and you lose your wife. There's a lot of great stories about that."
Stevens' grandmother Julia Ruth Stevens told him about his great-grandfather and can be heard on www.baberuthcentral.com.
"She's 92. She's still pretty sharp. I feel when she told me these stories, I could see it and with all the details," Brent said.
He even relayed one story, which is not widely known about the Babe.
"Babe Ruth's parents put him in St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys (in Baltimore) when he was 7-years old," Brent said. "St. Mary's primary focus was teaching boys a trade that they could use when they left the school. Babe's trade was sewing and mending shirts. For a lot of Babe's life he actually mended a lot of his own shirts."
Sean heard stories and went to many signings with his grandfather after graduating from Edinboro University.
"I was amazed there wasn't a lot of black people there. I felt a lot of our history wasn't being told in our communities and our neighborhoods," said Sean, who resides in Pittsburgh. "That's when I started the Josh Gibson Foundation and wanted to teach kids about the game of baseball and the history of the game of baseball."
More and more inner-city children aren't gravitating toward baseball.
"When kids don't see people of their color playing and they see them in other sports, they tend to gravitate toward those sports," Sean said. "Through our foundation and some projects we have going on, we're trying to pick up that interest to get inter-city kids to play baseball."
Even though teaching young people is essential in presentation of Josh and The Babe, which has been to MLB's Civil Rights Game in Memphis, Tenn., Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. and the African-American Heritage Celebration in Pittsburgh, they want to preserve the memories of their great-grandfathers. Brent added he and Sean have more presentations lined up for this year.
"For Sean and I, it's important to ensure a proper legacy for our great-grandfathers. This is what drove us to do this," Brent said.
