Hall of Famer Bob Gibson, the dominating St. Louis Cardinals pitcher who won a record 7 consecutive World Series starts and set a modern standard for excellence when he finished the 1968 season with a 1.12 ERA, has died at age 84.
"I just heard the news about losing Bob Gibson and it's kind of hard losing a legend. You can lose a game, but when you lose a guy like Bob Gibson, just hard," Cardinals star catcher Yadier Molina said."Bob was funny, smart, he brought a lot of energy. When he talked, you listened. It was good to have him around every year. We lose a game, we lose a series, but the tough thing is we lost one great man.
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. During 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. In 1968, thirteen of his 22 wins were shutouts, leading McCarver to call Gibson"the luckiest pitcher I ever saw. He always pitches when the other team doesn’t score any runs."
"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. He was close to McCarver, a Tennessean who would credit Gibson with challenging his own prejudices, and the acknowledged leader of a club which featured whites , Blacks and Hispanics .
"I had been kept up on his health and where he was at. I was really hoping it wasn’t going to be today. I was going to wear his jersey today to the field but decided against it," he said. At Omaha in the minor leagues, he was managed by Johnny Keane, who became a mentor and cherished friend,"the closest thing to a saint" he would ever know in baseball.
In 1964, a year he regarded as his favorite, he won three times in the last 11 games as the Cardinals surged past the collapsing Philadelphia Phillies and won the National League title. Gibson lost Game 2 of the World Series against the New York Yankees, but he came back with wins in Games 5 and 7 and was named the MVP.
But 1968 was on a level few had seen before. He began slowly, losing five of his first eight decisions despite an ERA of 1.52, and fumed over the lack of hitting support. . "I was awed," Tigers second baseman Dick McAuliffe later said."He doesn't remind me of anybody. He’s all by himself."
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