by Bob Gibson
Anyway, that’s probably how I’d go about it with Reggie, although I wouldn’t throw him too many fastballs. Even with the knowledge that he has trouble with the inside pitch, if I go inside and throw him a strike it’s going to be right on the corner. But I’d rather go off the corner. I’m thinking way inside. That’s what the slider’s for.
Reggie Jackson
A left-handed hitter has a hard time hitting that pitch. It crawls up the label. That’s what Mariano Rivera does. It looks good and you just can’t lay off it. But you can’t hit it, either.
I don’t know how I’d do against Mariano, but after I matured a little bit I learned to lay off the inside pitches. I wanted the ball away from me, and I wanted to keep it out toward left center. I tried to make my foul line where the second baseman stood, so I didn’t pull off the ball trying to hit it down the line to right. Since I didn’t handle the ball inside anyway, I resisted the temptation to be a pull hitter. It wasn’t always easy. Yankee Stadium is built for left-handed power hitters. When we played in Detroit, where there was a small porch in right field and a small porch in left, I didn’t want to think right field because it would hurt my swing. If I could be in a ballpark where they wanted to keep the ball away from me, that was to my advantage. Yankee Stadium fit that description, because it was so big in left field and left center.
In the World Series, especially, it seemed like I always got a lot of balls away from me. You know, I was the World Series MVP in 1977, against the Dodgers, but I thought I hit the ball just about as well against the Dodgers in 1978. I batted .391 with a couple homers and broke some records of Lou Gehrig’s for extra-base hits and consecutive games with an RBI …
Bob Gibson
Wait a minute. After a guy wins a World Series with three straight home runs in the final game, I can’t believe the same team would allow him to hit .391 in the next World Series. Didn’t they figure it out?
Reggie Jackson
They wanted to pitch me in, I think. But I backed off the plate about four inches more than usual and leaned forward, so it wouldn’t look like I’d moved. I faked it to make it appear normal. That way, they’d go ahead and bring the ball in, but I was actually far enough from the plate that I could handle that pitch. It was the only time in my life I ever did that. I baited them into giving me inside strikes. Then, as soon as they started throwing the ball, I would just raise up …
Bob Gibson
I would have seen that.
Reggie Jackson
Easy to say now!
Anyway, I’d just raise up and pray that the guy would throw the ball in, where he wanted to throw it; throw a strike. I didn’t want to get the count to two-and-two, or something like that. I figured that if I was up there long enough, they’d see me moving around. But they just kept throwing strikes. Every time. I got ’em. If they’d thrown me some balls and seen me moving, it would have been all over. But I just got in the batter’s box, faked my stance, and said please throw me a strike; and they did. Boom! Boom! Boom, boom, boom!
Bob Gibson
Orlando Cepeda tried that all the time, but I could see him move. He’d start off on top of the plate and I’d just pound him inside. And every time he came to bat, he’d creep off a little bit more. By the end of the game, he’d be in the back of the box and I’d be throwing him sliders way out there. When he got traded to the Cardinals, I said, “Charlie, you’re always creeping back away from the plate.”
And he said, “Did you see me?”
“Of course I saw you. What do you think I was watching?”
He said, “I wondered why at the end of the game you always pitched me away.”
“Because you were way the hell in the back of the box by that time.” He couldn’t reach that pitch with a flagpole. And he thought he was tricking me.
Now, I said I would have seen Reggie doing that, but in a World Series you wouldn’t notice all the things that you’d notice during the regular season. A guy like Cepeda, I saw him all year. In the Series, you’re pitching against guys you might be seeing for the first time. I think that’s a big part of the reason why I struck out so many guys in the World Series. I had a reputation for throwing heat, and in the World Series they were all looking for it. I guess they didn’t know I threw a lot of sliders.
Reggie Jackson
That snapdragon.
Bob Gibson
War games, that’s all. That’s what it is.
Reggie Jackson
Let me ask Bob: How would you describe the art of pitching?
Bob Gibson
It’s making the hitter do pretty much what I want him to do. Being in control of the situation. That’s something that comes with knowledge and maturity.
When you’re an amateur, even a minor-leaguer, a pitcher can be in control by virtue of his stuff alone: If you have a ninety-five-mile-an-hour fastball, or you can break off a Sandy Koufax curveball, you have an advantage going in because you can simply overmatch most of the hitters. Once they’re overmatched, they’re pretty much at your mercy. The battle is yours to lose by making a mistake that there’s really no excuse for. But the further you go up the ladder, the bigger the window for mistakes and the higher the price you pay for them. And the more you have to learn and think the game.
After a couple years in the big leagues, I learned the strike zone a little better. I learned the hitters. I learned that ninety-five miles an hour is good, but you’ve got to throw it somewhere in particular. When I was young I thought you could just throw it by people, but in the major leagues they turn that stuff around if it’s in the hitting zone.
I learned about myself. And I learned how to pitch in certain ballparks. For instance, at old Busch Stadium in St. Louis—where we played until we moved downtown, by the Arch, in 1966—at first I wouldn’t pitch any left-handers inside because I didn’t want them hitting the ball onto that roof that was sitting out there, way too close, in right field. So I was working the ball away from the left-handers a little bit, out over the plate, and they were hitting it on the roof anyway. In 1965 I gave up thirty-four home runs, and I’ll bet you twenty of them were onto that roof. That was before I really learned to pitch. I was the World Series MVP in 1964, and that was because I had good stuff and I wasn’t afraid and I could rise to the occasion; but it didn’t mean that I knew how to pitch. Eventually, I learned how to keep the hitters away from short porches like that. I learned that just because the pitch is inside doesn’t mean it’s going onto the roof. Some players would prefer a ball out over the plate to pull toward a short porch. I didn’t know that when I was young.
Here’s another thing I learned: Hitters who stand practically on top of the plate and don’t like the ball inside will still swing at a ball inside. Then they might back away a little bit for the next pitch, to give themselves some hitting room, and if you bring the ball a little further inside they’ll still swing at it because it looks the same to them as the last pitch. They don’t realize that they’re standing in a different spot. Their body didn’t get the memo from their brain. Now the plate’s a whole lot wider than it was, and there’s no way in the world that guy’s going to do anything with a good pitch on the outside corner, even if he’s looking for it. He’ll pop it up or pull it foul.
You’ve just got to know who you can do what to. That’s what pitching is.
Reggie Jackson
As a hitter, what I had to learn, mostly, was what I could do and what I couldn’t do. A good pitcher may have an advantage with a big fastball or breaking ball, but I had an advantage, too; a major advantage: I could hit a fly ball and get it out of the ballpark. If I could get the barrel on the baseball, I could put us on the scoreboard.
The pitchers knew that, and because of it they’d be careful not to give me anything I could put the fat part of the bat on. But that could work to my advantage, too, if I was patient. That could put me ahead in the count and lead to a situation where a pitcher had to come at me with a strike. Patience is a hard thin
g for a hitter to learn. There’s patience involved in waiting for the pitch you can square-up, and there’s also patience involved within the act of hitting a pitch that you can’t turn on and pull out of the park. If the pitch is away from you, sometimes the best course is to be patient, keep your weight back, and deliver the ball to the opposite field. I was a better hitter after I learned to do that. Maturity makes you better. Confidence makes you better.
It took a while, but eventually I came to realize that there was something else in my favor: My weakness—my inability to handle the ball inside—was one that most pitchers were reluctant or afraid to expose.
It would have been a different story if I hadn’t been a home-run hitter; but my power was the reason a lot of pitchers wouldn’t throw me inside. It’s the same thing Bob was talking about. Most pitchers, especially young pitchers and pitchers who lack knowledge and confidence, assume that a power hitter is going to jump all over a pitch on the inside part of the plate. So as my reputation as a power hitter developed, some pitchers became less inclined to bring the ball into the area that was actually my weakness. And when they did, I learned to let it go.
If I’d have learned that earlier, I might not have had so much difficulty with a guy like Gary Peters. He was a veteran lefthander for the White Sox, and he wasn’t the type who was shy about bringing the ball inside against me. He went right to my weakness and kept his fastball on my hands. I hated facing Gary Peters. As a young player, I really didn’t know enough to be able to succeed against him. I didn’t know enough to lay off the inside fastball.
Instead, I tried to hit that pitch out of the ballpark and it created a lot of bad habits. My first four years, I led the league in strikeouts every year. It really wasn’t until I was about thirty that I fully acknowledged the problem and learned to lay off the inside pitch. After that, I still struck out a lot, but I got the number down a little bit by understanding what I couldn’t do. And along with that understanding, I came to realize that my inability to hit the inside pitch wasn’t really such a terrible problem to have. I made it to the Hall of Fame without being able to hit the inside pitch.
It’s all a learning process. I learned concentration and discipline at the plate. I learned how to make contact when contact was all I needed to bring in a run. I learned how to go up to the plate and not try to do too much with the ball. I learned how to hit with men on base. I would talk to good hitters—guys like Thurman Munson, Sal Bando, Joe Rudi, Don Baylor, Frank Robinson, Dick Allen, Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, and Billy Williams; guys who knew what they were doing.
I learned that if you stay within the limits of your ability and play the game the way it should be played, good things will happen. Little things win ballgames.
Bob Gibson
For the hitter, it’s all about getting a pitch to hit. For the pitcher, it’s all about not giving the hitter a pitch to hit. Pretty simple. And what it usually boils down to, for both of us, is getting ahead in the count.
Reggie Jackson
That’s why I would swing at the first pitch if it was something I liked.
That’s an important “if.” What I mean is, I wouldn’t deliberately not swing at the first pitch, like a lot of batters do. I wouldn’t just let the pitcher get the upper hand in the count. If he makes a perfect pitch on the corner with plenty on it, fine. Congratulations, and we’ll go from there. But I’m not giving him anything.
Bob Gibson
I’d love to pitch today, because you hear a lot of these guys talk about getting deep into the count. I think I would eat ’em alive.
Reggie Jackson
Because it’s going to be oh-and-two.
Bob Gibson
One, two, buckle your shoe, and off you go. If I get oh-and-two on a guy, it seems like ninety-nine percent of the time I’m going to get him out. I know that studies show the numbers aren’t that drastic, but they also show that oh-and-two gives the pitcher an overwhelming advantage, which is obvious to begin with. For that matter, the same goes for one-and-two. At any rate, I’m not talking from numbers because, for one, decimal points don’t do anything for your fastball, and two, there are so many extenuating circumstances that go into statistics like that. I’m talking from experience, from what my eyes and gut tell me, and from the standpoint of strategy.
When these hitters today put so much stock in getting deep into the count, that means they’re going to be purposely taking some pitches. If you take the first pitch against me, you might have a problem, because I didn’t pitch like these guys do today. I wasn’t pitching away from contact; I was pitching to contact. I was trying to make the guy hit the ball. I didn’t want to throw any cripples in there—I’d throw pretty good stuff, and it helps to bring it in there at ninety-five miles an hour with a little life—but I wanted the batter to hit it. Hit it right away, by all means.
But you’re hitting my pitch, not yours. And when you let me get ahead in the count, all my options are wide open. Thank you very much.
Reggie Jackson
There’s a real lesson in Hoot’s conversation. Once he gets ahead of you in the count, he’s got two or three chances to put a ball in the area where you can’t get the barrel on it squarely. So it’s not only that he wants you to hit the ball and put it in play; he’s going to make you hit it, and hit it on his terms.
I’m not suggesting that you just go up there hacking. If you swing at a first pitch you can’t really deal with, you’re just making the pitcher’s job that much easier. If you get something nasty on the corner, or some breaking ball you weren’t anticipating, let it go and hope for a better pitch next time. That’s why you get three strikes. If the pitcher can get ahead that way, then he has earned his way ahead. But for goodness’ sake, don’t allow him to get ahead by just laying one down the middle. Make him pay for that. Instill in him the fear of doing that. Make him work. The harder you make him work, the better chance you have of getting ahead.
Bob Gibson
Getting ahead is the most important part of getting a hitter out. When you’re ahead, you’re not backed into a corner where you have to throw a certain pitch to get a strike. When you throw ball one and especially ball two—the second pitch in the sequence might be even more significant than the first—there’s a pretty good chance that you’re going to have to come with the fastball in one of the next two pitches. Now the hitter knows what to expect and he’s up there licking his chops. Those guys love it when you have to throw a fastball. When I got behind in the count, the batter was going to get something to hit.
There are always exceptions, depending on the situation and the batter. For example, I’d avoid throwing Hank Aaron a fastball over the plate if there was any possible way I could get around it. But in the great majority of cases, I’m going to give the batter a pitch to hit rather than walk him. If it’s two-and-oh or three-and-one, he’s probably going to get a fastball up in the strike zone, because the high fastball was my best pitch. But if you get ahead in the count, it’s a whole different game with a whole different set of possibilities. Now you might throw anything.
That’s why a first-pitch strike is so critical, and that’s where confidence comes in. Because I had confidence in my stuff, I was a believer that, if I made a mistake on the first pitch and drifted a fastball over the middle of the plate, most of the time the batter was going to foul it back. I had faith that there was enough speed and movement on the ball that he would still have a hard time getting good wood on it. Believe me, I was a pitcher who liked to minimize the risk; but there was greater risk in falling behind in the count than in giving the batter a chance to hit the first pitch. When you pitch from behind, you’re asking for disaster. Don’t throw balls.
Reggie Jackson
As a hitter, once you get strike one against a guy like Bob Gibson, it’s in your best interest to hit the next strike he shows you. You don’t want to face him with two strikes. As important as strike one is, strike two is right there with it.
It’
s a race to see who can get to two first—two balls or two strikes. The second strike puts you on the defensive, without the luxury of being able to let a strike go by or the option of waiting for a particular pitch. Not with that slider on top of that fastball. The bottom line is, you don’t want to get behind in the count.
Since I have a position with the Yankees, it’s important for me to understand pitching. So I’ve started asking around about this whenever I’m in the company of a great pitcher. When we played golf a while back, I asked Bob what was the most important part of pitching and he said, “Strike one.” So did Greg Maddux, so did Tom Seaver, and so did anyone I asked—Juan Marichal, Steve Carlton, all of them. So I took that to the bank, and I use it as information if I’m talking to our pitchers or if I’m talking to our hitters.
It’s good to hear it from the pitchers’ side, but really, what those guys were telling me was nothing I didn’t know from twenty-one years in the big leagues. And it didn’t take that long to figure it out. I wasn’t about to get on the wrong side of the count by standing there with the bat on my shoulder watching strike one come right into my breadbasket. And if the guy is a strike-one pitcher, like Maddux, Seaver, Gibson, and most of the great pitchers are, all the more reason to go up there ripping—as long as it’s a pitch you can handle, or a pitch that’s as good as any you’re likely to get.