PITTSBURGH — The Senator John Heinz History Center and Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum will display nearly 50 paintings and sketches depicting the lives of Negro League baseball players as part of a new exhibition, “The Story of Negro League Baseball: We Are the Ship,” which opens Friday.

This exhibit features original paintings by Kadir Nelson, an award-winning artist and author who spent seven years interviewing former players, examining old photographs, and researching baseball archives.

As part of the exhibit, the Sports Museum will unveil a new life-like museum figure of baseball legend Josh Gibson, the Hall of Fame slugger who starred for the Homestead Grays and Pittsburgh Crawfords.

Artifacts in the exhibit include a rare Homestead Grays uniform that once belonged to Euthumn Napier, the backup catcher to Gibson in the late 1940s, and a glove that belonged to Hall of Fame pitcher Satchel Paige.

The exhibit will continue through Aug. 26. History Center admission is $10 for adults, $9 for visitors age 62 and older, $5 for students and children ages 6 to 17, and free for children age 5 and younger.