If It's a Must Game,
It Must Be Gibson
When going got tough,
tough righthander really got going
Victory that afternoon was essential. The manager, as desperate to win as a normally stoic man can be, chose to deal momentarily in fantasy. An hour before the first pitch,
he turned to his pitching coach and said, "I wish you were going today." The pitching coach remained silent.
In short order, the boss entered the clubhouse. A high-profile, demanding and outspoken man, the club owner was hoping to rally his team. And the manager, Joe Torre, repeated his fantasy. "I wish I had Gibby going today," he said to Ted Turner.
"And you could see the light go," Torre recalled earlier this month, 21 years after the fact. " 'Think we can?'" Turner said.
Even in fantasy, with all pitchers available to start the final game of the Braves' 1982 season, Torre wanted Bob Gibson. He made his choice not out of friendship, not out of loyalty to his buddy, but "because I really wanted to win, and there's no one else I would have trusted more than Gibby then. And now."
To Torre and a multitude of others in the game, Gibson was -- and still is -- the must pitcher for the must game. Before John Smoltz, Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson -- money pitchers all -- there was Gibson. And he's still there, his image as the man of the momentous moment undiminished since he last threw a pitch in anger 28 years ago.
Some might opt for Whitey Ford or Sandy Koufax. Indeed, Gibson's second choice was Koufax. But his first choice was clear: No. 45 of the Cardinals, snarling, sweating, intimidating, working quickly and so rhythmically, falling off the mound with each delivery, a three-alarm blaze behind each eye, demanding more of himself than of anyone else on the field and doing everything conceivable to win.
Willie Mays, at first unwilling to choose between Gibson and Koufax, eventually picked Gibson for a must game "because Sandy didn't hit, and Gibson might beat you with his bat." Gibson hit two World Series home runs and was a sensational fielder.
"He'd beat you in a lot of ways," Phillies coach John Vukovich said. "And if everything else failed, he'd mean you a win."
"Ferocious" is the adjective Tim McCarver preferred for the Hall of Fame pitcher he caught in nine World Series games -- eight of them complete games. Gibson won seven of his starts, losing twice, and produced a 1.89 career World Series ERA with 92 strikeouts in 81 innings. In 1968, Gibson tossed 13 shutouts in 34 starts while fashioning a 1.12 ERA, a record that still stands.
Gibson was McCarver's choice to start the must game. "I would never bet against Bob," McCarver said. "He always wanted the ball, and we always wanted him to have it."
At crunch time, Gibson let it be known, he wanted the ball. No, he had to have it. To him, an empty-handed pitcher isn't a pitcher at all, and on those cursed days when the Cardinals' rotation and Gibson's right arm said "it's someone else's turn," he felt deprived, denied -- even depressed.
So it was in May of 1971 that Gibson was deprived, denied and depressed -- all because he was disabled. His groin had betrayed him and, against his wishes, the Cardinals put him on the 21-day disabled list. Three weeks without the ball and a forum to compete, three weeks without the opportunity to beat somebody.
"I knew I'd miss four or five starts," Gibson said earlier this month in Jupiter, Fla. "My chance of winning 20 games was down the drain. I was going to go so long with no chance to compete. I hated that. It was depressing.
"I lived on the 28th floor of the Mansion House in St. Louis. I went home one day and walked out on the balcony. I started understanding why people jump. I was so depressed. I can understand why people think that way. I came back in and never went out on the balcony again."
Competing was his way of fulfilling himself, defining himself. "The most competitive pitcher I ever saw," Torre called him. It was Torre who had the Mets hire Gibson as the "attitude coach" in 1981, hoping Gibson's fire would spread to his team.
"The most competitive man I've ever known," McCarver said. "Intense, ferocious. He had a remarkable will."
"I'm not so sure," Torre said, "that he didn't hate losing more than he enjoyed winning. That's the way he was; he wanted to compete and he was driven to avoid failure ... Whatever it was that motivated him, it worked."
Gibson began his major league career in 1959 when the inequities in American life still were conspicuous. He railed against racism, he hated it.
"But nothing bothered me like losing," he said. "I wasn't responsible for the stupidity of the people who were racist. But I was responsible for the games I pitched. And when I lost, I was responsible." Losing scarred him.
Marty Noble
Newsday
