This guy would have made it to the hall of fame even if he had stayed a pitcher throughout his career. But, alas, he was moved to the outfield.
Also, he could hit pretty good too.
Posted on 05/13/2019 9:12:55 AM PDT by Rummyfan
On May 12, 1969, the St. Louis Cardinals defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers 6-2 at Busch Stadium. Bob Gibson pitched a complete game for the Cards, allowing two runs on seven hits. He struck out six and walked one.
There was nothing exceptional about Gibson’s pitching performance that day. It was a typical one for him that year, except for the relatively low number of strikeouts.
But Gibson’s contributions weren’t limited to pitching. At the plate, he went 3-3 with a walk. He also stole a base.
Gibson singled to lead off the bottom of the third inning, but did not score. In the bottom of the fourth, he came to the plate with the bases loaded and two out. The Dodgers had walked Steve Huntz intentionally to get to Gibson. Huntz, a rookie, was batting less than .100. Gibson had consistently batted around .200 throughout his career.
Gibson singled off of Claude Osteen to drive in Joe Torre and Joe Hague, giving the Cardinals a 3-0 lead. These were are all the runs they would need that day.
Gibson singled again to lead off the home half of the seventh inning. His hit triggered a two run inning that gave St. Louis a 6-1 lead.
The lead was 6-2 when Gibson batted in the bottom of the eighth with one out and no one on base. This time, he drew a walk from reliever Pete Mikkelsen, a teammate of Gibson’s the previous season.
Gibson proceeded to steal second base.
As I understand it, baseball etiquette at the time (and maybe still) did not frown on stolen bases by teams with leads of four runs or less. The notion was that as long as a grand slam could tie the game, it was not showing the opposition up to get a runner into scoring position by stealing second base.
The Cardinals were four runs up when Gibson stole his base. It’s true that a four-run lead in the bottom of the eighth with Gibson pitching must have felt more like a six-run lead. Nonetheless, Gibson did not violate any unwritten rule by swiping the bag.
I’m not sure whether he cared.
In my opinion, there hasn’t been another Bob Gibson since he retired in 1975. However, the Washington Nationals have perhaps the closest thing to Bob Gibson since then.
I’m talking about Max Scherzer. He resembles Gibson in the intensity with which he competes, including the visible effort he puts into every pitch. Both hate to come out of a game and they pitch pretty much the maximum number of innings that the practice of their eras permits (280-290 for Gibson; 220-230 for Scherzer).
Both compete not just on the mound, but at the plate. Gibson retired with a batting average of .206. In an era when pitcher batting averages have declined, Scherzer’s is .194.
Scherzer even has a stolen base to his credit. It came last year. He’d have more, I’m guessing, if management didn’t discourage its ace from base running escapades. Gibson stole 13 bases during his career, but was caught 10 times, which means his escapades were counterproductive. Anything less than about a two-thirds success rate hurts the team, though the analysis that shows this hadn’t been performed back when Gibson was playing.
Gibson and Scherzer were both relatively late bloomers. Gibson didn’t become a premier pitcher until his age-26 season. Scherzer didn’t gain that status until even later.
Both made up for lost time. Gibson won two Cy Young awards and made the all-star team nine times. Scherzer has won the Cy Young award three times and has been an all-star six times so far.
If Scherzer resembles Gibson, it’s probably not a coincidence. Scherzer is from St. Louis and I understand that his father was a big fan of Gibson.
Maybe Brad Scherzer was at Busch Stadium on May 12, 1969. Or perhaps he caught the game on radio or television.
In any case, it’s likely that Brad held out Gibson as a model for Max. So it’s not surprising that almost every time I see Scherzer battling on the mound and at the plate, I think of Bob Gibson.
Whitey Ford pretty good too.
1968 was a magical year for Gibson. He had more complete games than he did wins - and he had plenty of wins. That is why his ERA was 1.12. He is the only pitcher that caused the dimensions/measurements of the baseball field to be changed. Because of him the pitcher’s mound was lowered in 1969. He was overpowering. My favorite Gibson quote was when he was asked if he would brush his mother back off the plate. He quietly said yes, I’f she was crowding the plate. The manager (Ken Boyer) once signaled Keith Hernandez (a pretty good first basemen) as a rookie to go to the mound after a walk, to slow Gibby down. Gibson glared at him all the way and barked, “What are you doing here. This is my place. You belong at first base. Now go!”
Until the 7th Inning of Game Seven of the World Series. ;)
This guy would have made it to the hall of fame even if he had stayed a pitcher throughout his career. But, alas, he was moved to the outfield.
Also, he could hit pretty good too.
But went 2-1 for the series, losing the series to Mickey Lolich in game 7, who was 3-0 for the series.......
Unfortunately for Gibson, he had to take a back seat in 1968 to that career felon and fat ass Denny McLain who was 31-6 for the season.
Years ago, as part of a work release program, McLain was working at a local 7-11......
This story illustrates the competitive nature of Gibson:
Years after he retired from the Cardinals, Gibson served a stint as a pitching coach for the Atlanta Braves. The Brave pitcher was in trouble so Gibson paid a visit to the mound. The hometown Cardinal fans were ecstatic to see their former hero and gave a rousing reception to Gibson. I expected him to tip his cap or acknowledge the warm reception in some way but Gibson strode back to the dugout after talking to his pitcher and never even glanced up. Nowadays there would be a reception and hugs all around but Gibson was too competitive for that.
Yes there was a bit of luck involved (there usually is), especially in Game 7 when Curt Flood misplayed a fly ball into a triple that was critical. But give the Tigers credit - they came back from 3 - 1 down to win.
Without a doubt the greatest Jewish lefthander ever.
Once in the World Series Koufax sat because it was Yom Kippur and the Dodgers started Drysdale. Drysdale proceeded to get hammered and when Walter Alston came to pull him he supposedly said 'I bet you wish I was Jewish too' LOL!
I wonder if he's on the "Famous Jewish Sports Legends" leaflet?
Gibson couldn't do it all on his own!
Him and Hank Greenburg for sure!
Not even Gibby could win them all against the 1968 Tigers, and I’m a Cardinals fan.
Hats off to Mickey Lolich.
As a kid, I was a huge baseball card collector. The back of the card always had a short bio of the player and his career stats.
I remember getting Gibson’s card,turning it over and thinking “Holy Cow!” His stats were eye-popping. At first I thought it was a typo. Really.
Remember Spahn, Sain, and pray for rain?
He pitched 314 innings for those 35 starts, meaning he pitched an average of 8.9 innings a start! Assuming a few of those games were extra innings, that meant he lasted until at least two outs in the 8th inning nearly every time he started!
Those are incredible figures, especially considering that today the girly-man coaches are pulling the girly-man hurlers in the 7th inning even with a big lead.
See my post #35. I was a boy and had Gibson’s card too. I lived in LA and luv’d Koufax and Drysdale, but also Gibson.
Of course, as a Dodger I wanted to whack the SF Giants Juan Marichal with a bat myself.
Low pitch counts today are probably due to economics - no one wants a Dusty Baker or Billy Martin overusing pitchers with guaranteed contracts - and today’s medical monitoring that recognizes the arm stress that leads to real damage.
The drawback is that the rare guys who can handle 125 or more pitches per outing might never be known.
Apparently he was really in the zone before the game and he was frightening to be around.
He was a great pitcher but I hated him as a commentator. He’d get mad if a player took a good hard swing at the ball. He’d say, “There’s no point in swinging that hard. You don’t have to swing that hard to knock it out of the park. If I were pitching, the next one would be right at his head”.
There can't be any more pitching heroics, for starters at least. Watching a Koufax or a Gibson waving off his manager after walking the first batter in the 9th, and then gritting his teeth even harder is an act of strength, grit, and determination.
Winning is everything, of course. But so are the stories of endurance and personal achievement. We don't take tired QBs out of tough games either in college or the NFL. Yet, we take star pitchers out after 7 innings even if he has a shutout going.
I don't really want to blame the pitchers themselves, but I do. They should demand that they be allowed to stay in the game. They should take pride in the fact that they won a game that was all theirs. Was it really a win that they earned if they left with a 3-1 lead after 100 pitches and 7 innings, and had their game saved by someone else?
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