by Bob Gibson
My leg kept me out of the first two games of the Series, and we won them both. I could have played in the third, against Fernando Valenzuela, but Bob Lemon didn’t put me in the lineup. It occurred to me that George had probably made that call. It would be my last season in New York, and my guess was that the front office wanted the Yankees to win a World Series without me, just to prove they could.
Maybe it would have been different if I’d played in that game. There were chances to win it, and I had no doubt that I could have gotten the job done. I always had before! As it was, the Dodgers beat us 5–4. Then they took two more one-run games with me back in the lineup. In Game Six, they gave us a pretty good drubbing. It was the first time I’d been on the losing end of a World Series.
I wouldn’t get another shot. And there’s no way to measure what I would have given for one.
CHAPTER SIX
THE OTHER GUYS
Reggie Jackson
Today, teams have advance scouts, video, charts, computer printouts, and all kinds of data designed to tell you how you’re supposed to pitch a certain batter. I have to say, all that information does help. But the great pitchers don’t really need all those reports, unless you’re talking about a hitter who just came up from the minor leagues. They’ll file them in their memory banks for information, but generally the good pitcher already has a plan of his own.
Seaver, Gibson, Maddux—they’re on their own programs. They understand their success and what they’re going to war with. And they understand the hitters they’ve been pitching to and have been getting out for years. Regardless of the scouting report, a guy like that knows how he’ll pitch me. I’d have to make an adjustment and hurt him a couple times before he’d change his approach and move on to something else.
Bob Gibson
I think my best friend in the World Series was the scouting report. Nobody really looked for my slider when we played in the World Series. They all looked for that ninety-five-, ninety-six-mile-an-hour fastball that I probably threw about eighty to eighty-five percent of the time during the regular season. The scouts just saw the fastball, and they heard about it by word of mouth or whatever, and that’s what went down on their reports. Fine.
I had a lot of regular-season games that were better-pitched than some of my best games in the World Series. The difference was that, in the World Series, the batters didn’t know me nearly as well as they thought they did by reading my friend, the scouting report.
Reggie Jackson
I had the same experience. That scouting report was the best thing I had going for me in the postseason.
They had a book on how to pitch Reggie, and the book said to go inside. That was all well and good, but teams like the Dodgers were so hung up on that scouting report that they couldn’t see what was happening in front of their eyes. They couldn’t tell that I was cheating back in the box. They couldn’t see that, for a while there, I was hitting a home run every time I swung the bat.
Bob Gibson
About the worst thing a pitcher can do is swear an oath to the scouting report. There are just too many things to consider.
Albert Pujols is kind of like Reggie, for example. You can get him out by pitching him in, too. But they’ll trot out some guy throwing the ball eighty-seven or ninety miles an hour, and he’s trying to pitch Albert Pujols on the inside part of the plate. That ain’t gonna work. It’s just not going to work. You’ve got to realize, pal, that some pitchers can pitch him in, but not you!
It’s just a fact that all pitchers are different and very few of them can succeed exactly the same way. A scouting report can be helpful to a pitcher if he understands its limitations, but as a blueprint to getting somebody out it’s not worth much, as far as I’m concerned. Sam Jones might be able to get a batter out with that great curveball of his, but that doesn’t mean I should throw curveballs to that same batter, because my ragtag curveball was nothing like Sam Jones’s. By the same token, I would be able to pitch Reggie, for instance, in ways that other pitchers couldn’t because I had command of two good fastballs and a hard slider and confidence in them all.
How could some other pitcher be expected to approach a batter the same way I do when, if I got in trouble, chances are that I wouldn’t even stick with that plan myself? If, say, you’re a sinker-ball pitcher and the batter is a good low-ball hitter, when your back’s against the wall you’ve got to go with the sinker regardless.
Reggie Jackson
All that aside, if I’d never faced Bob Gibson before and somebody handed me a scouting report on him, I’d definitely look at it. I don’t have to pledge allegiance to it, but I’d take a look. I can use all the information I can get.
Bob Gibson
Sure, you want to get an idea. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen the way they say it’s going to happen.
In 1965, the Cubs had a little rookie infielder, a Dominican named Roberto Peña who was about five-foot-eight at the most. The scouting report said that this guy could pick the ball up and hit it four times and couldn’t get it out of the ballpark. It said to throw the ball right down the middle and let him hit it as hard as he can. And the very first pitch, I threw it right down the middle and wham, he hit an opposite-field home run to right. His first career home run. The next night, he hit his second career home run, against Curt Simmons. In 1968, he hit his third career home run, against Steve Carlton. In 1969, he hit his fourth career home run, against Carlton. I don’t think our scouting report on Roberto Peña was very good.
Reggie Jackson
The best scouting report is your own history with the other guy, if you have one. When you first get into the league you might keep your own little black book on how pitchers throw to you, but after you’ve been around for a while the book is in your head—at least, when you’re facing the guys you’ve seen over and over. In my last year or so, I’d go to the ballpark in, say, Baltimore, and up on the scoreboard they’d have my lifetime statistics against the Orioles. It looked like a season. I’d have like 580 at-bats, 120 runs scored, 40 home runs … After all that, the Baltimore pitchers and I had a pretty good idea of what to expect from each other.
I saw Jim Palmer from 1969 to 1982. I knew how he was going to pitch me. I faced Nolan Ryan for almost twenty years. When you’ve battled somebody for that long, your rivalry is at a different level. Your plan is already complete. There aren’t many nuances left to think about. There’s not much cat and mouse going on anymore. It’s almost easier, really, because you’ve swallowed so much of the guy’s bread and butter. You’ve come to anticipate the taste of his cooking.
Being a smart hitter is knowing how you’re going to be pitched. You can do that more intelligently against a familiar foe you’ve batted against for a dozen years. Being a smart hitter is knowing what the pitcher’s going to do in certain counts with certain scores. Certainly he’s going to pitch you differently when it’s 6–1 than when it’s 1–0. And he’s going to pitch you differently depending on what pitcher he’s pitching against. If Palmer’s up two runs and we have our number-four starter going and there’s a runner at third base, he’s not going to be worried about that run. He knows he’s in good shape. But if he’s matched against Bob Gibson, Ferguson Jenkins, Roy Halladay, or Johan Santana, then you’re going to be pitched differently because he can’t count on any more run support. He’s going to protect what he has and be a lot more careful.
None of that stuff is in a scouting report. It’s in your head and your history.
Of course, it’s a different story if you’re talking about a rookie pitcher or somebody you’re unfamiliar with. In that case, I’d listen to the scouting report but I’d also do my own scouting by watching the guy throw in his warm-ups. I’d check him out in the on-deck circle. You don’t stand there moving and timing him, but I tried to get a feel and a rhythm for what’s going on. I did that by paying attention.
Bob Gibson
You hear all the time that young hitters have an advantage
their first time around the league because there aren’t good scouting reports out on them yet. And it’s true, it seems to happen that way a lot. But it really shouldn’t. As a pitcher, I feel like it’s easier to pitch to a hitter I haven’t faced before—and who hasn’t faced me, which is more to the point—because I can assume that he’s going by the scouting report. He just knows what I usually do, not what I’m likely to do. I consider that a big advantage.
As a rule, though, I think scouting reports are more useful for hitters than they are for pitchers. At least they tell you how hard a pitcher throws and what his other pitches are like and how good his control is on most nights. That’s information you can use. But whatever they tell you about a hitter, they tell you in the context of a pitcher who isn’t you. As far as I’m concerned, about the only scouting report worth anything to a pitcher is the one that comes from the last time you faced that batter—or better yet, the last fifty times.
When we played Boston in the 1967 World Series, they said you couldn’t throw Carl Yastrzemski high fastballs because he was a high fastball hitter. I thought, really? Well, I was a high fastball pitcher. The first game, I just kept throwing the ball up there and he kept hitting it straight up in the air. I never struck him out. He’d get a good swing at it. But he couldn’t quite catch up with it. If somebody had been writing up a scouting report from that game, it would have said to get Yastrzemski out with high fast-balls. But that wasn’t going to work the next day for Dick Hughes. Yastrzemski had two home runs the next day.
In the 1965 All-Star Game, I faced Harmon Killebrew in the bottom of the ninth with the tying run on second base, in his home ballpark. They told me you couldn’t throw Killebrew a high fastball. Is that right? Struck him out with a high fastball, as I recall.
They told me the same thing about Sadaharu Oh when we toured Japan after the 1968 season. They said you couldn’t throw him a high fastball. Well then, what am I gonna do? I threw him three high fastballs. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. Never touched the ball. We got back to the dugout and Cepeda said, “Was that the guy you weren’t supposed to throw high fastballs to?”
I said, “Yeah, I think it was.”
Reggie Jackson
There was a pitcher from Kansas City named Steve Busby who actually figured out and had the guts to pitch me inside. He threw mid-nineties and had an electric slider that crawled up the label. I hated facing him. Also Dave Stieb for Toronto. Stieb had a mid-nineties fastball that I could hit, but he had a slider that looked like it was right down the middle and when I swung it either cracked my bat or I’d foul it off the handle. Sometimes I’d look around and think, man, I hope nobody saw that. Both of those guys caught on. For all I know, it might have been a mistake the first time they figured out about working me inside—sort of like the way Bob figured out how to pitch Eddie Mathews. But I’m sure I looked funny swinging, and I’m sure they thought, ohhhh … yes!
On the other hand, Bert Blyleven was a pitcher who hardly ever tried to come in on me. Blyleven had great stuff. Nasty curveball. Hitting Blyleven’s curveball was like trying to drink coffee with a fork. It was like Nolan Ryan’s. The two best curve-balls in the game belonged to Bert Blyleven and Nolan Ryan. Just like Willie McCovey was the standard for raw power, you measured the curveball off Bert Blyleven, because he would use his a lot more than Ryan used his. But I liked facing Blyleven. He gave up as many as forty or fifty home runs in a season, and I usually felt like I was going to click one. I only got six off him, though, in 140 plate appearances. I had more at-bats against Blyleven than any other hitter did, and at the same time he was the pitcher I faced more than any other. As well as I knew him, and as good as I felt standing in there when he was on the mound, I actually only hit a little over .200 against Blyleven for my career. I must have seen two hundred great curveballs in those 140 plate appearances. But I always thought I was going to get something to cut at. Looking back on it, maybe that’s what he wanted me to think.
You know, I just now figured that out. It took me about thirty years. Kinda slow, eh?
Bob Gibson
Koufax had a curveball like that. It would start in the same spot as his fastball and then just disappear.
Reggie Jackson
As much as Blyleven threw his curveball, he didn’t hang many. The home runs I hit off him were fastballs that missed his spot. Usually when you get a guy, it’s because he missed his spot.
Bob Gibson
Here’s the fine line you have to walk as a pitcher. Roberto Clemente just couldn’t hit the ball down and away. But get it up and away, and he’d knock the pee out of it. Just a few inches made all the difference.
There were little subtle things with so many batters, things that you wouldn’t know unless you watched them and sparred with them for a while. Rusty Staub was interesting. He was a left-handed hitter you could pitch away, but only until he got two strikes. Then you’d have to come in on him, because with two strikes he’d try to hit the ball to left field. I knew that. So I’d go boom, boom, hard outside, then beep, he’d shorten up a little and here it comes on his hands. Break his bat.
You just have to study these guys, and you have to remember. And you have to respect them.
Reggie Jackson
Tommy John was interesting to me. Before his elbow surgery he threw about ninety-two miles an hour, and post-surgery he became a sinkerball pitcher. He always had excellent location. I could never hurt Tommy. Even when I hit a home run against him in the 1978 World Series, he was already way ahead in the game. We became teammates on both the Yankees and Angels, and I watched and admired how well he was able to manage a game from the mound. You might feel comfortable against Tommy, and even enjoy batting against him, but that didn’t mean you could beat him or hit him.
On the other hand, Luis Tiant was a guy I looked forward to, and with better reason—eventually. In his heyday, he threw ninety-five and pretty much had his way with me. But after being in the league eight or ten years, he showed me balls to hit and didn’t throw hard enough to get them by me. Tiant had a curveball I could time. He liked to throw his curveball to surprise you, like two-and-oh, three-and-one, something like that.
His style was kind of like Marichal’s. The dance was similar on the mound; but the effect wasn’t quite the same. Tiant was good. Marichal was great.
Bob Gibson
I thought Marichal was the best pitcher in our era. He didn’t have the best stuff, but he was the best pitcher. He could throw strikes from anywhere. And he could throw a different pitch from anywhere. He was tough.
Reggie Jackson
There are plenty of guys who throw hard, but you’ve got to be able to put the ball in certain places. Sam McDowell was an example of one who had great stuff but wasn’t a good pitcher. He just tried to strike everybody out and threw the ball right over the plate. He was “wild in the strike zone.” You can throw a hundred miles an hour and you’re not going to win if you keep serving up balls right over the plate. Sudden Sam also had a great curveball on top of all that speed. But if you could keep the game close, he’d beat himself.
For a lot of pitchers with great stuff, the book said that if you could stay close they’d give you a ball to beat them with. There will be a loud bang in the seventh or eighth inning.
Bob Gibson
To me, Frank Howard was the hitter’s version of McDowell. He was a big, strong guy who swung hard, and every once in a while he was going to hit one eighteen miles. But he wasn’t a good hitter in the way that the really good hitters were. He had those massive long arms and he liked the ball out over the plate. I would just stay from the middle in, good hard stuff. Then sliders away.
I got him out pretty well, except one time he hit a ball over my shoulder and I went to catch it and missed, and when I turned around it was heading into the bushes up in center field. Into the bushes. I just got it in the wrong place. You can’t do that.
Reggie Jackson
Denny McLain always gave you a ball to hit. I
think he liked home runs almost as much as hitters did. He didn’t mind giving them up as long as he won the game. Late in 1968, the year the Tigers won the World Series, I hit two homers off him one game. Both of them put us in the lead, but true to form he ended up winning, 5–4, and it was his thirtieth victory of the season. Denny McLain was out there to win games.
Nolan Ryan was another one who didn’t seem to care if he gave you something out over the plate. To this day, I don’t know that Nolan threw for spots. I felt like he felt he could throw so hard it didn’t matter where he put it; all he had to do was throw strikes. And to a great extent, he was right. He could get away with pitches that virtually nobody else could. But because of that, he wasn’t so careful with his control.
Of course, he threw a curveball that matched his fastball. You couldn’t hit his curveball. The only reason he ever got hit was because of his control.
Bob Gibson
When I was coaching in Atlanta, we used to have pretty good luck against Nolan Ryan. We hardly ever scored on him early, but then he’d start getting smart with the curveball and trying to trick you with it. He had, whomp, this great big old curveball, and he’d try to change speeds on it and do various things. The guys wouldn’t even pay any attention to him for the first three or four innings, when he was throwing heat. They’d just be in there talkin’ and spittin’ and waiting for the fifth to roll around. Then in the fifth inning they’d grab their bats and be ready to go, and here comes Nolan with that trick curveball and they’d just rip at it. They knew what was in store.