Sixty Feet, Six Inches

by Bob Gibson

  Reggie Jackson

  Bob was one of the guys I studied. His intensity and his determination—that spread-eagle with his legs stretched out and that flying follow-through—expressed a fierceness that I admired. I watched the way he instilled fear in the batter. Gibson was the most feared of all the pitchers. It was his combination of extraordinary ability and intense will.

  To me, he was the pitching equivalent of Frank Robinson, who had the ferocity of a fighter and the reputation to go with it. In the heat of a big ballgame, I tried to summon the intensity of Gibson and Frank Robinson.

  Bob Gibson

  That intensity is something all great players have in common. They just show it differently. People thought Hank Aaron kind of glided along without much fire in him, but that’s not possible. That man had to be seriously driven to accomplish what he did for as long as he did and put up with what he put up with.

  Reggie Jackson

  There might be great players who don’t bring it every day, but I don’t remember playing against any. I can say from experience that the great pitchers I saw were never off when I saw them. When I faced Roger Clemens, he had it that day. When I faced Tom Seaver, he had it that day. At least it seemed that way to me. Jim Palmer, Dave McNally, Mickey Lolich … I never went back to the dugout and said, “Man, he’s not throwing that good today.” And if a teammate said to me that he’s not, I’d say, “Well, take my jersey and put on my glasses and go up and stand on the left side of the plate with number forty-four on your back. You’ll see. He’s not throwing me that chicken salad that you’re gettin’!”

  I didn’t need coffee or bennies or amphetamines or whatever to get amped for Nolan Ryan or Ferguson Jenkins. Against those gentlemen, you’d better be on your game from the moment you get up. Otherwise, you’re going to beat a path between home plate and the dugout. Because they’re going to be on it. If you don’t get them in the first three innings, you’ll be in for a painfully long day.

  I didn’t ever go to Baltimore and Frank Robinson had the flu, or a stiff neck. He wasn’t in a slump. He wasn’t swinging bad. He wasn’t limping. My gosh, we’d go to play the Orioles and they’d have four twenty-game winners lined up for us. We got all of them. It wasn’t like, hey, McNally went to see the doctor today, he had a sore elbow. He didn’t have a sore elbow for us. When we went to see Mickey Lolich in Detroit, he had a big ol’ belly, he threw in the low nineties, he had a slider and a curveball to go with it, and he was going to be there for nine innings. That guy pitched 376 innings one year. He was going to be there until he either won or lost. When it was 1–0, either way, he was there, baby. When it was 5–5, he was still there. You had to be ready when you got out of bed.

  That’s how it is with the great ones.

  Reggie Jackson

  When we went to Shibe Park we’d go stand around where the players came out, but we weren’t allowed to speak to them. As a black kid, you weren’t supposed to be noticed. That’s how it was in those days. And that was okay. It was enough for me just to see those guys.

  We’d watch Jackie Robinson walk by and get on the bus with Duke Snider, Clem Labine, Carl Erskine, Don Newcombe, Junior Gilliam, and Roy Campanella. But my most vivid memory is the Braves coming out one night. I’ll never forget seeing Hank Aaron wearing black slacks, a black turtleneck, and a houndstooth black and white sport coat. I’m sure Mathews, Spahn, Adcock, and all those guys were there. Lew Burdette, Bob Buhl, Del Crandall, Johnny Logan. But all I remember is Hank Aaron and Billy Bruton, a center fielder who was about my complexion.

  I was just amazed. Right there, Hammerin’ Hank Aaron. He was the first major-league baseball player I’d ever seen up close.

  Bob Gibson

  I have to say I was never quite that enthused about seeing Hank Aaron. In fact, there was probably no player in the National League who enthused me less.

  That man did not miss a fastball.

  Reggie Jackson

  In Oakland I wore number nine, but when I came over to the Yankees that number was already taken by Graig Nettles. So I chose forty-four because of my admiration for Willie McCovey and Hank Aaron. I was also aware that Jim Brown and Ernie Davis had worn forty-four at Syracuse. Great number.

  Bob Gibson

  Aaron hit more home runs against me than anybody but Billy Williams, and McCovey was only one behind him. Reggie chose well.

  But they were different types of hitters. McCovey was a fly-ball hitter and Aaron wasn’t. When he got to Atlanta, where the ball carried so well, Aaron began to lift and pull it more, but I thought he was a better hitter as a young player in Milwaukee, when he was swinging downward and smoking line drives all over the park. You know, he was a two-time batting champion in Milwaukee, and he might have made a run at four thousand hits if he’d stayed there. Either way, he was such a great fastball hitter that I threw him a lot of breaking balls, a lot of sliders.

  The worst pitch in baseball is the changeup slider, but I’d throw Aaron that changeup slider and he’d be out on that front foot and hit rockets, two hops to the shortstop. All of our shortstops took balls in the chest off the bat of Aaron. They’d go, “Goddamn, Gibby!”

  I’d say, “Hey, this is the way I get him out. He’s gonna knock you over, so be ready for it.”

  Reggie Jackson

  Nobody had quicker hands than Aaron. He was a unique hitter and a unique player. Hank was so low-key and unassuming that he had about six hundred home runs before most people realized what he was all about. I’m still not sure they understand.

  Frank Robinson was a guy who would drive himself, slide hard, take pitches on the elbow, and fight the third baseman for tagging him out. Aaron wasn’t like that on the outside.

  The inside was another story. Henry Aaron had the calmness of a cobra. Don’t mess with him! He’ll fool you, for sure.

  That man was quiet death with a bat at home plate.

  Bob Gibson

  I think I’ve made it pretty clear how I felt about opponents hitting home runs. I wanted no part of it. That’s why, to me, Willie McCovey was the scariest hitter in baseball.

  He hit seven against me, and that was more than enough to make me wary of him, but don’t forget that for every game I pitched there were four more that I watched. And I always made it a point to pay attention when McCovey took his turn, just in case some other pitcher figured out something that I hadn’t thought of. That didn’t mean you could do the same thing, but it was worth taking a peek.

  I was watching in St. Louis one night when McCovey hit a shot against Al Jackson that I’ll never forget. It was a hanging breaking ball. Usually his home runs stayed up in the air because of that long, arcing swing of his, but this one was a line drive to the upper deck and over the scoreboard. It hit a façade out there and bounced back onto the field. I’d never seen anything like it. We were sitting in the dugout talking, keeping an eye on Stretch—that’s what everybody called him—and all of a sudden there was stone silence. Then we all stood up to see. The only other ball I ever saw hit that even resembled that one was a home run Duke Snider hit in the old ballpark in St. Louis. That one hit off the clock on top of the stands in right field. It had to be five hundred feet. But the one McCovey hit had to be five-fifty, maybe six hundred. They didn’t measure them in those days, and Mickey Mantle always got credit for the longest home run at 565 feet, but I have to believe that this one was right there with it.

  Reggie Jackson

  I was playing center field in 1969 when McCovey hit two home runs in the All-Star Game in Washington, D.C. One of them smashed against that cement block wall in center field where the clock was. They interviewed Stretch after the game and asked him if it was the hardest ball he ever hit. He had that thick, Mobile, Alabama, accent—he and Aaron were both from Mobile—and he said, “I don’t know … But I hit it pretty good.”

  Stretch was a little calmer than Willie Mays and didn’t attract attention in the same way, but it was a mistake to underestimate him. Ask any pit
cher from that era—Seaver, Jenkins, Gibson, Perry, whoever—and he’ll tell you the most feared hitter in the game wasn’t Mays or Clemente or Aaron; it was Willie “Stretch” McCovey.

  If you didn’t pitch him accordingly, you’d be getting a new baseball from the umpire.

  Bob Gibson

  That was not a mistake I was likely to make. To me, McCovey was the ultimate power hitter. The trouble was, the Giants had a ridiculous batting order with him and Mays and Cepeda and Jim Ray Hart and Felipe Alou. Even their catcher, Tom Haller, had four home runs off of me. It wasn’t a lineup that allowed you to pitch around somebody very easily.

  But none of the others put the fear in me that McCovey did. Not even Mays. He was right-handed.

  Reggie Jackson

  Since McCovey and I were never in the same league, except for a few weeks he spent with Oakland in 1976, his impact on me was mostly social. The time I spent in Arizona with him, Fergie, and Billy Williams—another great player from Mobile—meant the world to me. As a young, ambitious, wide-eyed African-American, that experience just embraced me in a way that made me feel like I was part of something special.

  Each guy took his turn buying dinner. At the time, I was making about twenty grand and those guys were all making a hundred, so I didn’t have to pay very often. But that wasn’t the best part. The best part was what I picked up by just being there. It brought about a comfort level with who I was. Before long, I became known as one of the first black guys who really spoke frankly about what he thought and experienced. A lot of that came from the poise and confidence I’d gained by being with those guys.

  They were men who had already done what I was earnestly setting out to do. They sensed that about me, and they provided me with an understanding of the dynamics, politics, and challenges of big-time baseball. They made me better able to manage myself—my angst, in particular. They’d gotten through it, and they showed me how they got through it. They helped me understand the signage when I traveled down the road. Thank you, my friends!

  They talked about being careful not to stay out too late, how one hour after one o’clock is worth two hours before. I soon figured out that it meant you should go to bed at eleven. And if you’re not with somebody before twelve, you’re probably not going to be with her after twelve.

  You can’t drink, smoke, and chase women. You can do one and get by. Two will shorten your career. Three will end it.

  That’s what I learned from those men. My guys!

  Bob Gibson

  My mentor with the Cardinals was George Crowe, a part-time first baseman who once hit thirty-one homers for the Reds. He was older, wiser, had been around the league, and he kind of took me under his arm. He also let me use his Jeep. In fact, we called him Jeep. He was more like a dad and a teacher than a teammate, and most of what he counseled me on had nothing to do with playing the game.

  George didn’t make it to the major leagues until he was twenty-nine, and by the time I started to have some success he was finished. But he helped me make it through those first couple years when Solly Hemus was our manager. Thank God for Jeep.

  Reggie Jackson

  One night, in 1974, it was my turn to drive and I picked up McCovey for dinner. We were going to a place in Phoenix called the Fig Tree to meet Billy and Fergie. Well, I’d won the MVP Award in 1973 and a guy had given me a T-top Pontiac. It was raining when I picked up Stretch, and the Pontiac was leaking—leaking on his side. After a little while of that, Stretch turned and said to me, real slow, “Man, Reggie, this thing is no star’s car.”

  You don’t think that made an impression? To this day, I laugh when I think about it.

  I love Stretch.

  Reggie Jackson

  My teammates, and only my teammates, called me Buck. They knew how I felt about Willie Mays, and that’s what Willie’s teammates called him. Chuck Dobson, a pitcher for the A’s and a good friend, pinned that on me. I appreciated it.

  More than anybody else, Willie Mays is the guy who got me jacked up about playing baseball when I was a kid. I was a fan who became a player, and a player who wanted to be Willie Mays. My goodness, what a player. Willie was one of the greatest hitters in the history of the game, and he could go oh-for-four and still beat you.

  Bob Gibson

  If I had to pick one position where I’d want my best glove, it would be center field. Curt Flood was my man out there. And maybe the best compliment I can give Curt is to say that he could play center field almost as well as Willie Mays.

  Aaron may have been a better hitter, but in the outfield nobody was quite like Willie. A guy like Jim Edmonds is really good, but with Willie you knew what you were getting every day—except that, on some days, he would make plays you couldn’t believe.

  Reggie Jackson

  One of the best things about the Cactus League was that we played the Giants and I got to see Willie Mays. It was like watching Michael Jordan. I’d stop following the game sometimes and just study Willie.

  He could put on a show just by arriving. For a one-o’clock road game in Mesa, Willie would drive in about quarter to one. He had a big Imperial that Chrysler gave him, and he’d pull up by the right-field line, jog out onto the grass, and get loosened up a little. He’d warm up throwing underhanded in that signature style of his. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. We’d start, he’d bat twice, hit two line drives, then he’d be gone. The game wouldn’t be the same after that. Time to go get popcorn.

  Bob Gibson

  Mays didn’t hurt me as much as Aaron did, as long as I didn’t make a mistake or throw him a breaking ball. He had a skittish left leg. I’d come in on him and he’d spin out and go flying, and the ball would just miss the plate a few inches. He’d act like I was trying to kill him. So after doing that a time or two, I’d just throw him fastballs down and away.

  Where Willie hurt me was in the field. Since the Cardinals didn’t hit many home runs, we expected to at least put some balls in the gaps. With Willie out there, that was asking a lot. There was plenty of substance along with that style.

  Reggie Jackson

  There’s no style without substance.

  There was also a lot of substance to Willie’s personality. With Mays, Henry, and Stretch, there’s a sensitivity that’s still in them. Ernie Banks was a different type. Ernie would make light of things to the extent that you’d never hear him talk seriously. A lot of people looked at him as insincere, a glad-hander; but I think that was simply Ernie’s way of masking his disappointment or anger, his way of handling the second-class-citizen sociology that came with being a minority. I know it bothered him. It affected him. His way of coping was just different than my way or Gibson’s way or McCovey’s or Aaron’s or Robinson’s or Mays’s.

  They all had their own styles. Mays’s style was just a little flashier than the others’. Willie made you look.

  He was everything a young black kid could hope to be one day.

  Reggie Jackson

  If Willie Mays was the Michael Jordan of baseball, Frank Robinson was the Bill Russell. Fierce. Intimidating. Intelligent. A ballplayer’s ballplayer. A winner through and through. It was like having Gibson on the field seven days a week.

  Frank became a mentor to me when I played for him in Santurce, Puerto Rico, in 1970. I’d had a bad year with the A’s, only twenty-three home runs and sixty-six RBIs. It affected me. I was disgusted with myself, and showed my frustration in ways that were counterproductive. I had temper issues. I threw things. I broke things. Frank watched a little of that, then put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Take it easy for a second, would you? Get your mind in the game. What, don’t you think you’re going to strike out now and then? You don’t think you’re going to make outs? You don’t think you’re ever going to look foolish at the plate? Don’t forget, you only need one strike to hit. But you can’t hit when you’re angry. If you try to, you’re wasting your time up there. Be in control of your at-bat. Give your talent a chance. Don’t get in your own way!�
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  He said, “You should be a leader, Reggie. You can’t lead the way you’re acting. You’re a star, you get a lot of attention, and guys are going to want to follow you. If they follow you the way you’re acting, it’ll be all wrong. You’ll be taking them down the wrong path.”

  When Frank Robinson spoke to me, I listened. He changed my thought process. He helped me mature and get rid of the young, dumb behavior that I was prone to. He made me understand that I wasn’t perfect and couldn’t be. He worked with me to develop some patience in my approach to the game. He coached me on how to control my temper and channel my emotion into something valuable. How to manage myself on the field. How to hustle without overhustling. How to be a professional. How to go about winning.

  It might not have meant as much if I’d heard the same things from Mickey Mantle or Al Kaline or even my old hero, Duke Snider. I respected those guys, too, but their experience and history didn’t resonate with me as much as Frank’s did, or Gibby’s, or Stretch’s. The black stars had dealt with a special kind of anger and angst. They understood oppression. They were relevant to me. I listened to them with a sense of veneration.