Sixty Feet, Six Inches

by Bob Gibson

  Bob Gibson

  Frank Robinson might have been the best I ever saw at turning his anger into runs. He challenged you physically as soon as he stepped into the batter’s box, with half his body hanging over home plate.

  His fearlessness played a tremendous part in making him the hitter he was. He practically dared you to clip him or knock him down, and when you did, he’d use it as intensity. He seemed to gain strength from it. If you couldn’t drive him off the plate—and you couldn’t—then you couldn’t take away his outside corner. Frank Robinson refused to be bullied when he batted. He was the bully.

  As a rule, I’m reluctant to express admiration for hitters; but I make an exception for Frank Robinson.

  Reggie Jackson

  A lot of people remember the home run I hit into the light tower at Tiger Stadium in the 1971 All-Star Game. I was pinch-hitting for Vida Blue in the third inning, with a runner on, and we were down 3–0 at the time. Dock Ellis was pitching—this was five years prior to when he hit me in the face—and he served me a high slider on a three-one count. Al Kaline, who played his whole career in Detroit, called it the longest home run he’d ever seen. As Willie McCovey would say, “I hit it pretty good.”

  But that alone was not what made the occasion special for me. What topped it off was that Frank Robinson was hitting cleanup for the American League and later in the same inning he hit a two-run homer that put us ahead for good. That made him the MVP of the game. Afterwards, when all the writers were asking me about the home run, I was able to dedicate it to Frank. This was the season right after he’d managed me in Puerto Rico, and it meant everything to be able to share the moment with the player I most respected. We also shared the awards. Plymouth gave me a four-speed Barracuda 440.

  I’m indebted to Frank Robinson. Following the 1973 season, when baseball’s arbitration process was initiated, I was involved in heavy salary negotiations with Charlie Finley. I’d just won the American League MVP Award, which certainly worked in my favor, but Charlie despised parting with his nickels. It wasn’t a pleasant experience. The tipping point might well have been a telegram from Frank that called me the best player in the league. I came away with a $60,000 raise that nearly doubled my salary.

  Talk about owing a guy.

  Reggie Jackson

  When Dick Allen—he was Richie then—was playing with the Phillies, people seemed to think it was a terrible thing that he wore a mustache. Well, my father wore a mustache. I thought Richie Allen was pretty cool.

  And he was. He never lost that cool over anything. He’d show up twenty minutes before a ballgame, no problem, stroll to the plate with that big forty-two-ounce club of his, and just whale on the ball. He’d smoke in the dugout. He’d skip spring training. That kind of stuff wouldn’t work for most guys, but it worked for Dick Allen. He had so much ability that you had to admire him.

  He was my favorite Phillie. And he was a great guy, to boot.

  Bob Gibson

  He was a good teammate. Especially on the Cardinals. I’d never played with a guy who could hit home runs and deliver on command like Dick Allen.

  It’d be 1–0 or 2–1 and we’d get to the sixth or seventh inning and Dick, who didn’t say much, would come over and tell me real quietly, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll get him.” Then, often as not, he’d go up there and, bop, home run. We only had him in 1970, but in that season alone he must have handed me five ballgames. It started on Opening Day against Montreal, when he hit a homer to tie the game in the eighth inning and we won it in the ninth. In May, I was scuffling and really needed a victory, and he beat his old team with two home runs against Jim Bunning. In August—I don’t know if I should thank him for this one or not—he homered to tie a game against San Diego in the eighth inning and I had to pitch all the way through the fourteenth before we finally pulled it out. I wish we’d have had three or four Dick Allens.

  Reggie Jackson

  No, he didn’t say much. And he let me know that, in his opinion, I said way too much. Dick told me to speak with my bat, not my mouth. Actually, he just pointed to his mouth and told me not to use that. Then he pointed to my bat and told me to use that. He was practicing what he preached, I guess.

  He told me not to promote myself so much, and also not to complain about a called strike. He said, “I don’t ever want to see you arguing with an umpire. If you need more than one strike to hit, I don’t want to know you.”

  At one point, Dick said something to a Sports Illustrated writer that I took exception to at the time. He said, “I look in the record book and I see Reggie has never hit .300. And I wonder how he can do all that talking.” But it was consistent with what he always told me to my face.

  He also enlightened me quite a bit about the art of hitting. We had long, rambling discussions about hitting. That was a subject he knew a whole lot about.

  Bob Gibson

  He could hit a ball so incredibly hard that it was easy to look at Dick as just a raw, natural talent at the plate, and a lot of people did. But I can assure you that the man was a thinker up there. He certainly outfoxed me a time or two. It was always a duel with Dick, because he’d remember something you threw him three months before. Of course, I remembered, too. That’s what made it interesting.

  Reggie Jackson

  Dick Allen was a special mix of talent, brains, and style. That’s why he appealed to me so much. He was the kind of player you just found yourself watching.

  I borrowed part of my home-run routine from Dick. People claimed that I started the business of admiring your home runs and styling around the bases, but that’s not true. I actually got my inspiration from Harmon Killebrew. Harmon couldn’t run a bit, but I liked the way he stood at the plate for just a brief moment, taking in what he’d done. He always knew when the ball was gone. He’d wait for it to come down and then take one or two walking steps out of the batter’s box. He also had a nifty little flip of the bat that made it turn over once and land real nicely on the ground. His trot was slow and easy.

  I didn’t do all of that. I copied the parts where he watched the ball for a second and flipped the bat, but then I ran the bases. I ran fast. And when I got home, that last part is what I took from Dick Allen. He walked the last four or five steps. I wasn’t quite that showy. I walked the last two or three. Then I touched the corner of the plate and peeled off.

  I also grew a mustache.

  Bob Gibson

  I prided myself on being a workhorse, but nobody pulled a load like Sandy Koufax in his prime. That could be why his prime only lasted about four years and he had to retire at the age of thirty after going 27–9 with a 1.73 earned run average. In his last year, 1966, he led the National League with 323 innings. The year before, he led the league with 335. No wonder he couldn’t lift his arm to brush his teeth.

  His teammate, Don Drysdale, put in almost as many innings, because the Dodgers used their starting pitchers on a four-day rotation. The Cardinals went with five days. The way it worked out, I usually ended up facing one or the other. Marichal would usually get shifted to another day when we played the Giants, so I stopped seeing him, but it seemed like I always lined up against Jenkins and Seaver, too. Red Schoendienst was our manager, and I could never figure out why he would do that. I asked him, “Red, why don’t you manipulate it so I don’t have to pitch against those guys and we’d make sure we win that ballgame?”

  He said, “Oh no. You beat them, and we could sweep the series.”

  I said, “I lose, and we could lose the series.”

  Koufax was the worst guy to pitch against. It seemed like he could have shut us out right-handed. Whenever it was his turn, our guys would sit in the clubhouse before the game going, “Man, this is going to be a tough day.” We were intimidated before he even stepped on the mound.

  Part of it was his reputation. Part was his fastball. And part was his curveball.

  Reggie Jackson

  My first year in the major leagues was his first year out of the
game, but I heard plenty about him from the guys I hung out with in spring training. Koufax was a guy whose name always came up.

  In 1971, Vida Blue became a sensation for us at the age of twenty-one, a left-hander with electric stuff. He pitched twenty-four complete games that year and struck out over three hundred batters. There was a game against the Angels in Oakland when he went eleven innings and struck out seventeen. Meanwhile, Rudy May went twelve innings for the Angels and struck out thirteen. In all that time, neither team scored. We finally won, 1–0, in twenty innings. Anyway, Vida struck out one of their outfielders, Billy Cowan, five straight times. Cowan had played in the National League for several years, and it so happened that a few weeks earlier somebody had asked him to compare Vida Blue with Sandy Koufax. He had said, “He ain’t no Sandy Koufax.”

  Vida must have remembered that.

  Bob Gibson

  Vida Blue actually threw harder than Sandy. Koufax had a light fastball that would, whoosh, sail up on you. But his curve was just devastating.

  We only had two guys who could touch him, and they were two of the unlikeliest—Gene Oliver and Bob Uecker. Most of Uecker’s hits against him came in one season, but even so, it was astonishing enough to stick in my memory. Oliver just wore him out, and none of us could understand why or how. Gene was a big catcher who hit just about every batting-practice pitch out of the park—a great BP hitter—and that was about it. Except when Sandy Koufax was out there.

  Otherwise, we were helpless against Koufax—until Brock figured out in 1965 that he could bunt on him. Once he was on first base he could run on him, too, because Sandy didn’t have a pick-off move; he had to either pitch to the plate or step off and throw to first. One game, Brock bunted twice for hits and both times stole second and third. Koufax was a gentleman, and it wasn’t easy to get him riled. Drysdale and Stan Williams were the ones who did most of the dirty work for the Dodgers. But leave it to Brock. The next time he came to bat, Sandy hit him in the back of the shoulder and cracked it.

  Fortunately, I wasn’t pitching that day. If I’d been pitching, I’d have had to wait for Koufax to come up and he’d have gotten it. Usually, when Brock made somebody mad enough to hit him, I’d just knock down the first guy I saw, because you couldn’t be sure that the pitcher would still be around by the time his next turn at bat came up. But that particular pitcher would have been around.

  It would have been my chance to do what nobody else on the club seemed to be able to—hit Sandy Koufax.

  Bob Gibson

  I did, however, put a ball in the back of his first baseman, Ron Fairly. He was the guy on the Dodgers who killed me. My goodness, that man must have had six thousand hits off of me. Actually, it was forty-eight, but that was even more than Billy Williams. He’d punch the ball over the shortstop’s head and you couldn’t strike him out. I tried to pitch him in, like I did a lot of left-handed hitters, and I didn’t have any luck with that. I’d pitch him away, make a good pitch, and he’d dump it over the shortstop’s head.

  One day he had already poked a ball or two over the shortstop’s head and I got a base hit, and when I was standing at first he said to me, “Goddamn, Gibby, you’ve got such good stuff, I don’t know how anybody could ever hit you.” I didn’t say a word. Fairly was a schmoozer and he’d probably be a great guy at a party just to sit and talk to, but I sure didn’t feel like shooting the breeze with him at first base after he had dumped another ball over the shortstop’s head. I didn’t want to hear it. Get your base hits and shut up. Joe Torre was catching for us, and when Fairly came up to the plate the next time he turned to Joe and said, “I’m not going to like this at-bat, am I?” Smoked him right in the middle of the back. Get your damn hits and leave me alone. I couldn’t get him out and he says he doesn’t know how anybody ever hits me. Hit this.

  Reggie Jackson

  My Ron Fairly was Dave Stieb, with that slider boring in on my hands. By the time he came into the league I was a veteran, and I’d learned to lay off the inside pitch from just about everybody but him. He was a right-handed power pitcher, which should have been right up my alley; but I went to bat fifty-five times against Dave Stieb and never had an RBI. He walked me a lot, probably because he wasn’t giving me anything to hit. Not a thing.

  The other guy who tore me up was Tommy John, whom you might expect because he was left-handed and could put the ball wherever he wanted it. He approached me differently than Stieb; he seldom walked me. But his control was so good in the strike zone that I just couldn’t square the ball against him. I batted sixty-nine times against Tommy—in the regular season, that is—and never had an extra-base hit.

  With that bias, I’d like to see Tommy in the Hall of Fame. He won 288 games and lasted twenty-six years in spite of revolutionary elbow surgery smack in the middle of his career. He actually had two careers—one before the surgery and another after. My other bias on his behalf comes from having played behind him in New York and California. You could learn about the game just by watching Tommy John pitch. He has more wins than any eligible pitcher who’s not in the Hall, and more than a lot who are.

  For that matter, Bert Blyleven has only one fewer. As I see it, Blyleven’s numbers should put him in Cooperstown. He had enough stuff, wins, and strikeouts that I call him a Hall of Famer. That said, I don’t think he was quite the pitcher that Jack Morris was. Morris was one of the great pitchers of his era, and he was a winner, as well. During the time I played against him, he was very close to being the best pitcher in the American League.

  Bob Gibson

  Jim Kaat ought to be in there, too. He doesn’t have any elbow surgery named for him, but his career was a lot like Tommy John’s. Twenty-five years, 283 victories.

  Reggie Jackson

  Kaat had something else in common with Tommy, and I’m not talking about being a crafty left-hander. He was two different pitchers. When he was young, he threw hard. After he hurt his arm a couple times, he became a magician. He stood funny on the mound, had an awkward motion, and he turned the element of surprise into an art. He’d quick-pitch, he’d sink the ball, he’d throw slop, he’d change speeds—anything to trick a batter and goad him into a mistake. He was also one of the best-fielding pitchers of all time.

  Bob Gibson

  Tony Oliva could be in the Hall of Fame very easily. Curt Flood could be in there, and not because of his contribution to the players’ union. He was nearly a .300 hitter and second only to Mays in center field. I’m prejudiced, no doubt, because Flood was one of my favorite people in baseball and he saved a lot of games for me, but I saw day after day what a great player he was.

  Ron Santo is another guy who deserves to be in. He’s like a lot of good ballplayers who don’t get elected because they never made it to the World Series. I appreciate the fact that a lot of the reputation I enjoy came from the World Series. Same with Reggie.

  Santo was like Mays in the way that he was kind of skittish on balls that came in too close. That’s why I didn’t have much trouble with him, although he didn’t remember it that way. I’d been doing some radio interviews at Randy Hundley’s fantasy camp, and somebody had evidently heard me say that Santo could never hit me. Santo got wind of it, and later that day he ran up to me and said, “Hey, I heard about that comment you made on the radio. I used to hit you pretty good!”

  I said, “Really? I want you to check, and the next time I see you I want you to let me know what you found out.”

  A few days after that, he got up to make a speech and he said, “You know, it’s nice to be here, seeing guys that I used to play against—guys like Gibson. You know, I didn’t hit him very well.” Evidently, he checked.

  Not that my memory is infallible. Torre told me that he’d hit a home run against me and I told him he was full of it. So he found an old newspaper clip and sent it to me. He actually hit two. Joe could hit. He couldn’t run, but he could hit. He was with us in 1971 when he led the league in hitting at .363, with 230 hits. To hit .363 with his sp
eed is an amazing accomplishment.

  Reggie Jackson

  Joe’s close to a Hall of Famer as a player, but surely he’ll get in as a manager. I just hope he doesn’t keep hurting his image, which could have an effect with the voters.

  Bob Gibson

  Pete Rose, on the other hand, will not get in as a manager, and it’s looking like he won’t get in at all—at least in the foreseeable future. Good ballplayer? Yeah. Whole bunch of hits? Yeah. Do I care whether he gets into the Hall of Fame? No. He violated a sacred rule.

  But I’ll admit it’s a tough call on where to draw the line. Between gambling and steroids and spitballs and the policies of the game and the laws of the nation, there are a lot of gray areas. I don’t pretend to have all the answers.

  What I do know is that Rose was basically a singles hitter. I didn’t lose much sleep over singles hitters.

  CHAPTER TEN

  MAKEUP

  Bob Gibson

  When I was growing up, my brother Josh would rent a big van and carry our little neighborhood team to small towns in Nebraska and Iowa, where the people would make fun of us. Bear in mind, this was the late 1940s. I’m sure we were a sight to those country folks, all these skinny black kids crowded into that van just having a ball.

  I was always on my best behavior in those places, because I didn’t want anybody laughing at me. One particular time—I must have been twelve or thirteen—we pulled up to this town square somewhere in Iowa and they had watermelon for everybody. I’m sure they got a big kick out of seeing us tear into that watermelon, and I wanted some in the worst way. But I wouldn’t eat it, because we had to sit there on the curb before we went to the ballgame and I refused to have people riding by laughing at me. I guess my pride just took over.