Born in Hickory on April 10, 1935, Joseph Charles Gibbon wove together an accomplished collegiate and professional sports career chock full of accolades. Mr. Gibbon was drafted in 1957 by the Boston Celtics but instead opted to play professional baseball, where he played for four MLB teams and was a left-handed pitcher on the 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates World Series team.

Mr. Gibbon died at the age of 83 at his residence Wednesday in Newton.

“If you mention baseball in Hickory, Joe’s name is going to pop up,” longtime friend Mack Fanning said. “If you mention baseball in Mississippi, more than likely it will pop up just after you start the list… Like they said about Bum Phillips, if you were to call the roll, there’s not many in his class.”

Fanning met Mr. Gibbon when Fanning was a 10-year-old student, and the two remained close friends. Fanning last visited Mr. Gibbon less than two weeks ago. 

Mr. Gibbon attended Hickory High School, where he played basketball. He was a member of the 1953 Hickory state championship basketball team, and although the school didn’t have a baseball program during his prep years, he played for local youth teams.

Tom Fanning is Mack Fanning’s older brother and also a former teammate of Mr. Gibbon. Tom Fanning now lives in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, but recalled a few Hickory basketball memories he shared with his former teammate. 

“Joe played high school ball as a freshman, and then was on the team three more years and just kept getting bigger and better,” Tom Fanning said. “He had a very uncanny left-handed shot. As his body developed, he was almost impossible to guard from the left side with that left-handed shot. He had a good body for basketball. He wasn’t overweight or anything, but he had a solid body that made him an impact player whether he was under the goal playing power forward, or playing outside shooting the outside shots.”

Upon his graduation from Hickory in 1953, Mr. Gibbon headed to Ole Miss, where he would eventually garner All-American selections in both basketball and football. 

During the 1956-57 season — which Mr. Gibbon ended with a 30-point, 14-rebounds-per-game average — Mr. Gibbon finished the year as the nation’s second-ranked scorer. He scored a career 1,601 points.  

Mr. Gibbon was a member of the 1956 Ole Miss baseball team that played in the school’s first-ever College World Series, and he was named the college regional tournament’s Most Outstanding Player. He ended his baseball Ole Miss baseball career with a .384 batting average. He received a host of additional conference and national accolades at Ole Miss.

Mr. Gibbon turned down the Celtics after they drafted him in 1957 in favor of baseball. He made his MLB debut in 1960 and played until 1972. In addition to Pittsburgh — where he played on two occasions —  Mr. Gibbon played for the San Francisco Giants, Cincinnati Reds and the Houston Astros.

Mr. Gibbon began his professional baseball career as a first baseman, but a thumb injury forced him to begin pitching. He never left the mount. During his time in Pittsburgh, Mr. Gibbon was teammates with Roberto Clemente, Elroy Face, Dick Groat and Bill Mazeroski. 

Mr. Gibbon was inducted into Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame in 1979, and he was inducted into the Ole Miss Hall of Fame in 1988.

“I think in the truest sense, Joe Gibbon was just a gifted athlete,” Tom Fanning said. “Joe could go to a pool table and run the table before anybody else got to shoot. And while I never went in the woods hunting with him, guys who did said that he could hit anything with a .22 rifle that he could see. He just had an unbelievable talent for hand-and-eye coordination, and I’m sure that’s what made that left-handed shot of his so deadly.”