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.
I agree......Gibson was a great pitcher and all my post meant was to convey that the 68 tigers won it via Mickey Lolich.........and to point out that the greatest pitcher of 1968 is now a career felon..........A piece of shit who should never belong in the hall of fame despite his career.........
Gibson is a class guy and deserves every accolade he receives...........
Maybe in today's game, where starters going past seven innings (Scherzer tied for the lead in complete games in the National League last season, with 2!) is rare, Scherzer is the closest there is.
I grew up watching Mickey polish dismantle Gibson’s cards in 1968 and Denny McClain winning !30! games.
The late great Sparky Anderson once sagely said, “There are a lot of pitchers in the big leagues but not nearly enough big league pitchers.”
And Lolich... I think he trained on Stroh’s LOL! Those were the old days....
Bttt.
5.56mm
Since you brought up the 1968 World Series, he lost the 7th game to Mickey Lolich 4-1.
I was trying to figure out why a higher mound favors the pitcher. The best I could do was that, in basic physics, the ball will drop about 3 feet in 60.5 feet when thrown 90-100 mph.
90 mph = 132 ft/sec.
Ball reaches the plate in 0.4-0.5 sec.
1/2*(32 ft/s^2)*(0.45)^2 = 3.36 ft.
at 100 mph it’s 2.72 ft.
at 80 mph, it’s 4.25 ft.
A slower ball is less likely to result in a homer. If you throw a ball against a brick wall hard, it will come back hard; if just lobbed, it will come back soft.
Now Bob Gibson threw plenty of fastballs, so I’m sure there’s something wrong with my reasoning. Maybe it’s just that with the higher mound, there’s greater room for error with the strike zone??
Hi scrabblehack-
My understanding is that the angle of the pitch coming from a higher mound was more intimidating from a taller pitcher. The mound was reduced 5 inches (from 15” to 10”) and the strike zone was made smaller (from the batter’s armpits to the top of the letters). Imagine a scowling, overhand pitcher being on a higher level throwing down to the batter. Randy Johnson at 6’10” intimidated many a batter. Then, also, the strike zone caused many high strikes. Mr. Zip was a college basketball player too, and signed a contract with the Harlem Globetrotters. That was one of the only games in town for a player of color with skills in the 1950s. Word on the street is that his fastball was equalled by his slider. He has currently taken Jack Flaherty under his tutelage and talked to JF about the mental side of the game. I am told that Gibby sees much of himself in the tenaciousness, quick work, no nonsense approach to pitching. Gibson will never miss a game that Flaherty is scheduled to pitch. BTW, Flaherty is scheduled to throw against the Atlanta Braves tomorrow night. Gibson is/was an American story of prevailing over much adversity. He had pneumonia and asthma as a child that made him a late bloomer. Then, he had to deal with lingering racial tensions. Just a few of my random thoughts. After the mound was lowered, he never got the same results. Personally, I think the smaller strike zone was the greater impact on baseball. The removing 6-8 inches from the top of the zone gave only a small area for strikes. Batters weren’t having to protect a larger area.
Blue eye!
Yes. When men took pride in finishing something they started, even if it took the supreme effort.
Can you imagine the whining from American males if WW2 happened today? Pajama Boy would be hiding under his mother’s couch and the other SJWs would be tweeting all day how triggered they were.
So a really fast arm would get even more of an advantage.
I agree it was for the optics of not having some intimidating pitcher peering down at you from Mt. Olympus.
Seems to have worked.
1968 was the year of the pitcher.
They've never been that dominant again.
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