Former MLBer immortalizing Negro Leagues legends with his artwork

This story was excerpted from John Denton’s Cardinals Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

CINCINNATI -- As a speedy shortstop who once stole 84 bases in a Minor League season and reached the Majors at age 24, Micah Johnson always thought his biggest contribution in baseball would be a long and prosperous career playing the game he and several generations of family members have loved for decades.

Instead, Johnson has found more success in his “second career,” as an acclaimed digital artist whose work has already appeared on the cover of Time magazine. He was also the first NFT artist to secure a major TV and film development deal for the “Aku” character he developed.

However, it is Johnson’s current project -- one that combines his deep baseball roots and his love for art -- that he views as both his most “challenging” and most important. By serving as a conduit between African American baseball titans -- such as Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson -- and impressionable young African American fans, this could ultimately define Johnson’s baseball legacy.

“I’ve been very fortunate in my second career to have some amazing moments, such as being on the cover of Time magazine,” said Johnson, whose paintings of Negro Leagues greats are being used as part of MLB’s Rickwood Field promotional tour. “I look at my career as a whole body of work. My legacy will never be that I was the best baseball player or the best artist. What I want people to see is that you can do anything.

“The significance of these cards didn’t really hit me until [this week]. To be that conduit between these great players and the next generation, that’s a legacy that lasts forever. To be a part of the first-ever Topps Negro Leagues card set, it’s super cool and super important.”

Johnson, 33, sought to capture the emotion, pride and essence of trailblazers such as Robinson, who famously broke baseball’s color barrier, with sketches where he used only his fingers, charcoal sticks, an eraser and a paint roller. In a collaboration between FOX Sports and Fanatics Collectibles, Johnson was commissioned to sketch Topps trading cards of Mays, Robinson, Paige and Gibson ahead of MLB’s Rickwood Field: A Tribute to the Negro Leagues. The Cardinals and Giants will play at historic Rickwood Field -- America’s oldest ballpark and the former home of the Birmingham Black Barons from 1920-60 -- on June 20 in Birmingham, Ala.

An enlarged 24-foot by 16-foot sketch of Paige, weighing 8,000 pounds, was unveiled earlier this week at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City. Then, it was on display this past weekend at Busch Stadium while the Cardinals were taking two games from the rival Cubs.

On Saturday, when the Cardinals take on the Phillies, Johnson’s enlarged sketch of Gibson will be on display at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. From June 7-12, the mural of Robinson will be displayed at FOX Plaza in New York City. Meanwhile, the enlarged trading card of Mays -- the oldest living Hall of Famer and a legend who played for the Black Barons from 1948-50 prior to breaking through into the big leagues -- will be displayed at Rickwood Field from June 18-20.

To try and capture the essence of the key players, Johnson had in-depth conversations with his father, Harold Johnson, and his great uncle, Theo Hamiter, about their memories of watching star Negro Leagues players thrive in the shadows of the big leagues before Robinson’s breakthrough for athletes of color.

“They talked about how much baseball and these great players meant to those cities where they played,” recalled Johnson, who played 61 MLB games with the White Sox, Dodgers and Braves from 2015-17 prior to devoting himself to his artwork. “Black people of all ages back then were obsessed with baseball. To me, it’s beautiful and romantic that they loved the game so much.”

Johnson said he considers it an honor to be a small part of the promotion of some of the greatest players to come out of the Negro Leagues. He is hopeful that his sketches will stir conversation about what those players had to endure to play the game that they loved and they will enlighten the younger generation about some of the game’s most influential trailblazers.

“The challenge was wanting to display these players accurately and give them the honor that they deserve, while also creating something that would captivate you, whether you are a fan of baseball, a fan of art or neither,” said Johnson, who grew up collecting baseball cards to learn more about the players he admired. “We want to draw multiple audiences in, and hopefully it will [help] them learn more about the Negro Leagues and these great players.”