To Absent Friends - Bob Gibson

 Bob Gibson

1935 - 2020

255 W -174 L

2.91 ERA

255 CG, 56 Shut Outs

3,117 Strike Outs

The great, and I mean truly great, Bob Gibson, Hall of Fame pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, died yesterday at the age of 84.  I am long past the stage of my life where I consider ball players and athletes heroes, but Bob Gibson has always been one of my very favorite athletes of all time.  As a Pirates fan, I often categorize baseball players by saying "In a critical game, who would I LEAST like to see the Pirates come up against?", and when you're talking about pitchers, Bob Gibson tops that list.  No pitcher of his era (1959-1975) was more intimidating on the mound.

The year 1968 is now commonly known as the "Year of the Pitcher" in Major League Baseball history.  Pitching was so dominant in that season, that MLB changed the rules of the game, primarily by  lowering the height of the pitcher's mound, and no pitcher in that season was more dominant than Gibson.  He pitched 304.2 innings that year, went 22-9, with an ERA of 1.12.  He had 28 complete games, and 13 shutouts.

A popular discussion point in bar room discussions or talk show debates is "If you needed to win just ONE game and your life depended on it, who would want to pitch in that game?"  The answer to that question has always been an easy one for me - Bob Gibson, and I know that I am not alone in that opinion.  He pitched in three World Series for the Cardinals in his career, 1964-67-68, and his record in those Series bears out that judgement.  In nine World Series games, Gibson went 7-2, 1.89 ERA.  He pitched 8 complete games and two shutouts.  He went 3-0 in 1967, and he started all three Games Seven in those Series, going 2-1.  He had 92 strike outs in Series play, and I believe that he still holds the World Series record for 17 K's in a single game, set in 1968 against the Tigers.

Former Cardinals and Pirates pitcher Nellie Briles spoke at a Pittsburgh SABR meeting once, and I asked him to talk just a bit about his former teammate, Gibson.  "He burned with a competitive fire and a will to  win like no other person I ever played with or against."  That's not an exact quote from Briles, but it is the gist of what he said, and it confirmed everything that I ever felt about Bob Gibson.

Within the space of a month, both Lou Brock and Bob Gibson have left us. What  terrible month for fans of the St. Louis Cardinals.

RIP Bob Gibson.