Breaking records is always the stuff of headlines, and breaking baseball records even more so. But amidst the ballyhoo of this year's home run derby, it is instructive to look at the story of the real champion -- a champion who did not make the headlines. PNS commentator Lee Hubbard is a writer on the staff of the San Francisco Bay View.

Sports fans everywhere have been eagerly following the home run race between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa since the two went past the old mark of 61 home runs in a season in early September.

But while this is a remarkable feat, both players need to hit a lot more home runs to break a record that is rarely discussed.

Josh Gibson, who played in the Negro Leagues, was the greatest home run hitter ever. He was credited with 89 home runs in one season. From 1929 to 1946, when Gibson played catcher for the Homestead Grays and the Pittsburgh Crawfords, he hit 823 home runs -- a total that places him 68 over the major league record held by Hank Aaron.

A player who hits for a .300 average is considered a great hitter. Gibson finished with a .391 career average, and hit .440 in 1938, while winning the home run crown. And the home runs Gibson hit weren't in tinker toy stadiums like Wrigley Field where Sosa plays, or the larger Busch Stadium where McGwire plays. Gibson was regularly hitting 500-foot bombs.

Talking about Gibson is not a matter of racial chauvinism or revisionism -- his talents were well known in baseball circles at the time.

"If you ever let him play in a small place like old Ebbetts Field or the old Fenway Park, Josh Gibson would have forced baseball to rewrite the rules," said Bill Veeck, the late owner of the Chicago White Sox. "He was, at a minimum, two Yogi Berras."

Some might argue with this observation, but Gibson, along with the great pitcher Satchel Paige, stood out among players in both the Negro Leagues and white major leagues. When the two leagues played each other in all-star games, the Negro League stars regularly spanked the majors. The Negro leagues were so talented, that it was a second-string infielder named Jackie Robinson who was rookie of the year (at age 26) in Major League baseball when he broke the color line in 1947. By an odd irony, Gibson died three months before Robinson took to the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

In his last years, Gibson was a broken man. Bitter because he could not play in the major leagues due to America's cancer of racism, he turned to alcohol and drugs. This just added to his health problems and he died at age of 35. Another 25 years passed before most Americans, black and white, heard of Gibson, when he was inducted into the baseball hall of fame in 1972.

Black players are now welcome in the major leagues, of course, but the earlier attitudes have not necessarily disappeared.

Cardinal slugger Mark McGwire hit the home run that broke the record on Sept. 8. The big redhead from Southern California -- clean cut, well-spoken, well built, and white -- was catapulted into sports icon status, on a par with Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron and other baseball legends.

This was apparent from the reception McGwire received that night -- the Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, and the Maris family were on hand to hug McGwire. The St. Louis Cardinals gave him a 1962 cherry red Corvette. And a phone call came from the politically troubled first fan in the White House.

The Fox network pre-empted its regular prime time programming to broadcast the game nationally and the game received a 12.9 rating, the highest rating for baseball on television since 1982. All major networks broke into regular coverage to show McGwire's home run.

Newspapers across the country put McGwire's feat on the front page, and raved about his accomplishment -- saying he had helped "save baseball" from the all-time low in popularity that followed the dismal players' strike in 1994. The San Francisco Chronicle story was headlined, "The right guy made history."

The Chronicle story indirectly referred to the other man chasing the home run record, Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs. Sosa, a black man from the Dominican Republic who speaks English with a slight Spanish accent, received a far different reaction when he also broke Maris' record -- and tied McGwire -- on Sunday September 13.

While McGwire received hugs from the baseball commissioner and the Maris family, Sosa received phone calls from the commissioner (who lives in Milwaukee, only 90 miles from Chicago -- and 380 miles from St. Louis) and the Maris family. While McGwire received a Corvette from the Cardinals and a call from the White House, Sosa received pats on the back from his Cub teammates. While McGwire's home run went on live television, Sosa's home run was a "sports highlight" during a break.

And newspapers outside of Chicago relegated Sosa's act to the sports sections.

All season, McGwire and Sosa have been one and two chasing the home run record. While McGwire was treated as the favorite to break the record, Sosa's home run heroics were considered a fluke. And although McGwire is justifiably acclaimed as the first person to break Maris's record, Sosa has never gotten his due and that is a tragedy.

Retelling the story of Josh Gibson is not intended to steal any of McGwire's or Sosa's thunder, but their records should be put in perspective. If Gibson could have played in the majors, both McGwire and Sosa would still be chasing his record.