He knew how to throw strikes and how to aim elsewhere when batters stood too close to the plate. Signed by the Cards as an amateur free agent in 1957, he had early trouble with his control, a problem solved by developing one of baseball’s greatest sliders, along with a curve to go with his hard fastball. Gibson had a long major league career even though he was a relatively late bloomer and was in his early 30s in 1968. “I was pissed,” Gibson later remarked, although he remained a top pitcher for several years and in 1971 threw his only no-hitter, against Pittsburgh. They lowered the mound from 15 to 10 inches in 1969 and shrank the strike zone. His 1968 performance, the highlight of the so-called “Year of the Pitcher,” left officials worried that fans had bored of so many 1-0 games. Gibson’s 1.12 ERA in the regular season was the third lowest for any starting pitcher since 1900 and by far the best for any starter in the post-dead-ball era, which began in the 1920s. Despite dominating the Tigers in the 1968 Series opener, that year ended with a Game 7 loss - hurt by a rare misplay from star center fielder Curt Flood - and a rewriting of the rules that he would long resent. He was, somehow, even greater in the postseason, finishing 7-2 with a 1.89 ERA and 92 strikeouts in 81 innings. He always pitches when the other team doesn’t score any runs.” In 1968, thirteen of his 22 wins were shutouts, leading McCarver to call Gibson “the luckiest pitcher I ever saw. Louis. (Associated Press Archives)ĭuring the regular season, Gibson struck out more than 200 batters nine times and led the National League in shutouts four times, finishing with 56 in his career. Louis Cardinals ace pitcher Bob Gibson throws to Detroit Tigers’ Norm Cash during the ninth inning of Game 1 of the baseball World Series at Busch Stadium in St. His concentration was such that he seemed unaware he was on his way to a World Series single game strikeout record (surpassing Sandy Koufax’s 15) in 1968 until McCarver convinced him to look at the scoreboard. “The only thing you know about pitching is you can’t hit it,” Gibson was known to say. And he had no use for advice, scowling whenever catcher Tim McCarver or anyone else thought of visiting the mound. I’ve got to win.”Įqually disciplined and impatient, Gibson worked so quickly that broadcaster Vin Scully joked that he pitched as if his car was double-parked.īall in hand, he was no nonsense on the hill. “I’ve played a couple of hundred games of tic-tac-toe with my little daughter and she hasn’t beaten me yet,” he once told The New Yorker’s Roger Angell. Gibson snubbed opposing players and sometimes teammates who dared speak to him on a day he was pitching, and he didn’t even spare his own family. He didn’t throw as hard as Sandy Koufax, or from as many angles as Juan Marichal, but batters never forgot how he glared at them (or squinted, because he was near-sighted) as if settling an ancient score. He also starred in basketball at Creighton and spent a year with the Harlem Globetrotters before totally turning his attention to the diamond.Īveraging 19 wins a year from 1963-72, he finished 251-174 with a 2.91 ERA, and was only the second pitcher to reach 3,000 strikeouts. 303 in 1970, when he also won his second Cy Young.īaseball wasn’t his only sport, either. The Cards came up just short in 1968, but Gibson was voted the National League’s MVP and shut down opponents so well that baseball changed the rules for fear it would happen again.Īt his peak, Gibson may have been the most talented all-around starter in history, a nine-time Gold Glove winner who roamed wide to snatch up grounders despite a fierce, sweeping delivery that drove him to the first base side of the mound and a strong hitter who twice hit five home runs in a single season and batted. Louis and was named the World Series MVP in their 1964 and ’67 championship seasons. One of baseball’s most uncompromising competitors, the two-time Cy Young Award winner spent his entire 17-year career with St. Gibson’s death came on the 52nd anniversary of perhaps his most overpowering performance, when he struck out a World Series record 17 batters in Game 1 of the 1968 World Series against Detroit. He had long been ill with pancreatic cancer in his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska. The Cardinals confirmed Gibson’s death the same day, shortly after the team’s 4-0 playoff loss to San Diego ended their season. Louis Cardinals pitcher who won a record seven consecutive World Series starts and set a modern standard for excellence when he finished the 1968 season with a 1.12 ERA, died Oct. Hall of Famer Bob Gibson, the dominating St.
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