Rant #2,505: Great Balls of Fire

Over the weekend, we lost probably the greatest pitcher of his generation, and certainly the greatest pitcher that I, personally, have ever seen.

 
Bob Gibson passed way the other day, a cancer victim at age 84, and how ironic that he left us during baseball’s postseason period, when they stakes are the highest.
 
Gibson knew what high stakes were, and he was one of the most ultimate performers when the game was on the line.
 
You would have never known as a child that Gibson would end up being one of the greatest baseball players ever to put on the spikes.
 
He was a sickly kid, with a number of ailments, including asthma and rickets, but once he got over those, he began an almost a real life Clark Kent to Superman transformation through sports.
 
Gibson was not only a terrific baseball player, but he was also a high-level basketball player, and when he was drafted by baseball’s St. Louis Cardinals, he was also signed by the Harlem Globetrotters.
 
When he finally chose to play baseball full time, he was just a middling pitching prospect, but a few years into his baseball career, he turned the corner, and for pretty much a 10-year span, he was the best pitcher on the planet, helping the Cardinals win two of the three World Series that they played in during this span.
 
But his 170year career—251 wins and a lifetime 2.91 ERA over 17 seasons, all with the Cardinals—was defined by one season.
 
1968 was a transitional season for baseball. Pitching had become the dominant force in the game, and hitters were at the mercy of pitchers like Gibson, who felt that he owned the strike zone in the inside corner of the plate.
 
If a batter did not give Gibson that respect when they were up at bat, then Gibson would give them a reminder of what he felt he owned, by buzzing them with one of his fastballs just near, not on, the batter’s head.
 
Gibson was so intimidating on the mound that year that he set a record that will never be surpassed.
 
His ERA—earned run average per nine innings—was 1.12, completely unheard of even in that pitcher-dominated season.
 
He won 22 games that year, lost nine—how did he lose that many?—won the Cy Young Award for being the best pitcher, and he also won the National League’s Most Valuable Player Award for being the most valuable player on the field.
 
He was nearly unhittable that year, and although the Cardinals lost the World Series to the Detroit Tigers, he was the best pitcher in the game at that point, and had been and continued to be that for several seasons.
 
Gibson was so dominant in 1968 that baseball believed that they had to do something about the lack of offense, and they lowered the mound, hoping to make it less obvious that pitchers were pitching down to batters. It worked to a certain extent, but Gibson continued his dominance into the early 1970s. He retired in 1975, and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1981.
 
Gibson had a reputation at being extremely surly, and nasty at times, and he had few people in his circle of friends, but according to one of those friends, once you were in that circle, you were a friend for life.
 
And he had the respect of everyone in the game, whether you were a teammate of an adversary.
 
On the MLB Network this past weekend, Hall of Fame broadcaster Bob Costas told a story about the reverence that Gibson had by other players, and the respect he, himself gave others on the field, even when he had been retired for years.
 
Costas broadcast an oldtimers game some years ago, and Gibson was part of the bevy of former baseball players who participated.
 
Peter LaCock—former Chicago Cub and son of “Hollywood Squares” host Peter Marshall—had hit Gibson hard during his playing career, including one home run that Gibson evidently never forgot.
 
Gibson came in to pitch, and LaCock was the batter.
 
Most oldtimers games are just fun for both players and the crowd, but as LcCock stepped into bat, Gibson took one look at him, uncorked a pitch, and it buzzed right by the batter, hitting him, but not in a place that it really hurt that much.
 
After the game, all LaCock could talk about was not his past home run, but being hit by Gibson—he felt that if Gibson remembered that home run all those years ago, it was a measure of respect from the pitcher that he hit him, and he was gloating about being hit more than any success he had against the pitcher.
 
That was Bob Gibson—he commanded respect, demanded respect, and when he pitched, he owned that mound, no matter what the circumstance.
 
How eerie that he joins the other greatest pitcher I ever saw—Tom Seaver—in heaven right now, and one can just dream of the game that is taking place there right now.
 
R.I.P.