by Bob Gibson
It was the same way with playing ball. I had a job to do and I had to figure out how to get it done. I couldn’t let anything stand in my way. My dad always said, “I don’t want to hear any air-ay-boo.”
Bob Gibson
What’s that?
Reggie Jackson
That meant no stammering around, no making excuses. Old-school for “BS.”
Bob Gibson
Sounds a lot like my brother bloodying my face and sending me back out there with a Band-Aid.
Reggie Jackson
Same thing. It’s why a guy named Bob Gibson pitches to three batters on a broken leg! It’s why I played through I don’t know how many hamstring pulls. It’s the culture we grew up with.
Now, a guy gets a hamstring and he’s out two months. We were out a week or ten days, they’d wrap it, and there you go. I’d say that, by July, most players in the big leagues have something wrong with them. More than half your lineup has a ding somewhere that they’re playing with, or sometimes—particularly these days, it seems—not playing with.
Today, technology finds more that’s wrong with you. There are more ways of treating your aches, tweaks, and injuries, and more understanding of how much time you should take off. The technology we had was a guy who was someone’s buddy who gave you a rubdown with analgesic balm, they called it, slapped a hot pack on you, and gave you some aspirin, or something like that. “All right, go get ’em!” We had a team doctor who came by a couple days a week, and that was pretty much it. Now the Yankees have a hand specialist, a shoulder specialist, a knee specialist, a general practitioner, a special-meds doctor, an eye doctor, a dentist … It’s the Mayo Clinic. You name it, we’ve got it.
Bob Gibson
When I was a bullpen coach, the kids would complain about their sore arms and I’d say, “You know, I can tell you what causes that.”
They’d say, “Yeah? Tell me, what is it?”
And I’d say, “Pitching. If you don’t pitch, you don’t have that.”
I didn’t worry about a little soreness when I played. It would go away after two or three days. Today you get a sore arm and they call it tendonitis. I guess I pitched with tendonitis. I don’t know. All I can tell you is that I’ve been retired for more than thirty years and my arm still hurts.
One year, seventeen times in a row, I had my knee drained before I pitched that day. It would fill up with fluid, they’d drain it, I’d pitch, and after the game it would fill up again. But I wouldn’t have it drained until the next time I pitched. You think they’d do that today?
Reggie Jackson
That would probably be an operation.
Bob Gibson
I did need one. It was cartilage, and I finally snapped it. I had the operation and pitched two more years on a knee without any cartilage to speak of.
But I’m not saying we were heroes or tough guys or anything like that. That’s just the way it was. After a game I pitched—that night—everything was sore. I’d drag my right foot through that hole that you always dig out in front of the rubber, and it would be bloody by the time I got back to the clubhouse. I’ve still got a knot in the joint between my big toe and my foot. My knee was sore from bone crunching on bone. After I got into the season, my legs didn’t bother me much—at least not when my knees were young. Arm-wise, I had more trouble with my elbow than my shoulder. My shoulder was always sore, but my elbow was sorer. Invariably, there’d be some guy who’d meet you and want to show you how strong he was by shaking your hand and grabbing you by the elbow. Man, that would hurt. It got to the point where guys would come to shake my hand and I’d put out my left and give them kind of a backhand shake. I’m sure my elbow wasn’t as bad as Sandy Koufax’s, but there were a lot of times when it was so sore I didn’t want to brush my teeth. I should have learned to do it with my left.
The point is, playing through pain was a big part of the game. Don’t get me wrong, though. If I were pitching today, I’m sure I’d welcome all the precautions they take.
Reggie Jackson
But even today, it’s important for a superstar to suck it up and play through minor injuries, because all the young players take their cue from him. Leadership is more about what you do than what you say: the Jeter way.
In thirteen seasons, Derek Jeter has only once played fewer than 149 games. You see Albert Pujols limping around out there and playing Gold Glove first base with a messed-up arm, and he’s never been in fewer than 143 games. And that’s not to mention Cal Ripken.
With Ripken, you could always say never. He was never too sick, never too sore, never too tired, never had an excuse, never had a day off …
Bob Gibson
Leadership is wonderful and everything, but it’s hard to demonstrate it from the disabled list.
When I was near the end of my career and Barney Schultz was our pitching coach, he wanted me to go out to the outfield and run with the rest of the guys. He said it would set a good example. I told him I’m sure it would, but I’m not helping the ball club if I’m out there pounding what’s left of my knees to the extent that they won’t get me through the next game. I’m thirty-nine years old and you want me out there running when my legs hurt? No, I’m not going to do that. It’s the same thing that a player like Ken Griffey Jr. has gone through. No matter how much of a gamer a guy is, you need to make some concessions at that age.
But then there’s this: Sometimes when a black player doesn’t answer the bell he’s considered a malingerer, as if he isn’t actually hurt or can’t deal with little aches and pains. There has always been an undercurrent to that effect, and at times it’s been joked about. White guys, kiddingly, have said, “Come on, man, you’re black, you know you can’t be hurt.”
It may be intended as humor, and even sympathetic, but there’s something there beneath the surface. There’s something they’re referring to. It’s the underlying notion that white guys play with more heart and character; black guys get by on natural ability.
I only wish I’d have realized that when I was a kid back in Omaha. I’d have mentioned it to Josh when he was bouncing ground balls off my face.
Bob Gibson
It’s hard for me to explain how I was able to thrive under pressure. It was just in my makeup. It just happened.
It wasn’t only in baseball; it was in basketball or anything I played or did. The bigger the game or moment, the more I was on top of it. When there was a pressure situation, I just always seemed to excel. It’s like it was expected of me. At least, I expected it of me.
Reggie Jackson
When there’s pressure, usually, there’s also an unusual amount of attention from the outside. Everybody in the park—and sometimes, everybody in the country—is watching. That was a good scenario for me. I liked that. I needed that. It helped me focus.
I called those Reggie Moments.
Bob Gibson
We’re both known for what we did in the World Series, and you’d think, because of that, that there must be something similar in our makeup. I’m sure there is, in terms of concentration and confidence and all that. But I don’t think my feeling about those situations was much like Reggie’s.
He thrived when all eyes were on him. I’ve heard people say that he’s the best hitter there ever was when everybody was watching. That worked for him. I had success in the same types of situations, but for me that part of it was only incidental. It wasn’t where I was coming from.
For me, the World Series was all on the field, and in the dugout with my teammates. It was us against them, for everything. It was the height of competition. That’s what brought out the best in me.
Reggie Jackson
The World Series put you on a stage, and that was where I liked to be. I wanted to bring the crowd to its feet. I wanted to bring the country to its feet. Sometimes I did, sometimes I didn’t. But I never ran from it. I ran to it.
There were moments like that during the regular season, too, when the game would heighten, grow to a c
rescendo, would come get me, but … I’m not proud to say it, but during the season I got bored sometimes. In the postseason, I understood what it meant to win the game. I always yearned to somehow, some way, be a part of the victory. The postseason was do or die. I died sometimes, but I did a lot, too, because everything around me—all the trappings, all the intensity—forced me to focus and get my faculties gathered up for the moment.
Bob Gibson
Everybody reacts differently to pressure. I saw plenty of players who absolutely couldn’t perform under it.
The Cardinals had an outfielder who, when he found out he was going to start Game Five of the 1968 World Series, went and sat in his locker facing the inside, scared to death. Everybody saw it. We all thought, what the hell is wrong with this guy? He had the chance of a lifetime to start in a World Series game. The World Series is the time to show what you can do, the greatest opportunity a ballplayer can have, it’s where we’ve always hoped to be someday—our Carnegie Hall—and his ship comes in and he’s scared. I couldn’t understand that. To me, it just didn’t compute.
I was nervous, too, in situations like that, but never scared. Hell no. And as soon as the game started, the nervousness left me. I might have played with more adrenaline than usual, but that’s different than being nervous. A lot different.
Reggie Jackson
I didn’t get nervous. I got intense. My sensitivities were enhanced. I had the ability to take the adrenaline, the focus, the intensity, and let it drive me.
All those feelings and emotions can hurt you if you don’t get them in check. That’s why I sometimes felt that I survived pressure situations more than I thrived in them. Once you acknowledge the pressure, it’s something you have to deal with. I thrived in the spotlight, but I survived the pressure.
Bob Gibson
Pressure sort of felt right to me. I got accustomed to it by playing for Josh when I was a kid. I grew up under it. It wasn’t World Series pressure, but I’m not sure it was any easier, either.
Josh absolutely wouldn’t accept any kind of failure on my part, or anything less than mental toughness. He imposed that toughness. He demanded it; and when my big brother demanded something of me, I did everything in my power to come through. It wasn’t that he would beat me or criticize me if I didn’t. He was just somebody I wanted badly to please, and when he told me to get the job done, I made damn sure I got the job done.
And the main job was being better than everyone else. Winning, in other words.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
FORTY YEARS OF CHANGE
Reggie Jackson
Baseball began to really change right around the time I got into it. I’m not saying that the events are related, just that I happened to be part of a very significant period in the game.
My first full year was 1968, and after the season they lowered the mound and shrunk the strike zone …
Bob Gibson
To me, the biggest effect of all that was the change in the environment. There had been a mutual ill will between pitchers and hitters, and when they started giving out warnings every time a pitch came inside off the plate, that element was taken away.
Reggie Jackson
I was Oakland’s alternate player rep when Marvin Miller got us thinking about a labor strike in 1972 …
Bob Gibson
And then Gussie Busch sealed the deal with his remark about the players union: “We’re not going to give them another goddamned cent. If they want to strike—let ’em.”
Reggie Jackson
I was with the A’s in 1973 when the American League introduced the designated hitter, which was pushed hard by Charlie Finley …
Bob Gibson
That went hand in hand with the umpire warnings. The upshot of the DH is that, since the pitcher doesn’t come to bat, the only retaliation against him is to charge the mound. It changed the whole culture.
Reggie Jackson
I was Catfish Hunter’s teammate when he took his contract with Finley to arbitration and became the first free agent …
Bob Gibson
Curt Flood should have been the first free agent. He was the martyr in the fight against the reserve clause.
Reggie Jackson
And after the 1976 season, I was in the first class of players eligible for the reentry draft. I was the first guy drafted, and ended up signing the largest contract.
Bob Gibson
At that point, there was no stopping Steinbrenner.
Bob Gibson
I honestly don’t know what I would have done if I’d been in the game when players were using steroids. You get pressured into that sort of thing if it becomes a matter of keeping up. If other players had been getting ahead of me by taking steroids, would I have done it? Maybe. Maybe.
Reggie Jackson
In spring training a year or so ago I was talking to Jason Lane, who was hoping to hang on as a part-time outfielder. He was telling me how difficult it was for him, being an extra player and having to compete for a roster spot against guys who were taking steroids. He blamed it on major-league baseball. His point was that the commissioner’s office didn’t monitor the situation closely enough, and it cost him a job. He believed that guys were outperforming him because they had taken steroids.
Probably true, and very sad.
Bob Gibson
I can sympathize with that. I can see where guys might feel penalized for staying clean. I can also see where some players might be compelled to do what they felt they had to do.
Steroids wouldn’t have been a temptation for me in 1968 or 1970, when I was at my peak, but if I’d felt that my skills were slacking and there was something I could take to keep me around longer, that might have been a different matter. I would have been more tempted in 1974 or 1975, when my knees were shot and my legs were gone. But I don’t know that drugs could have helped me at that point.
I have a harder time with players putting up career years and breaking records on steroids, if that’s the case. But then, there’s so incredibly much money at stake these days, and a whole lot of it goes to guys who hit home runs. The ballparks are smaller than they used to be, the strike zones are smaller, the highlights are on ESPN every night—everything is screaming for people to hit the ball out of the park. I’m sure, to a lot of players, the reward seems greater than the risk.
Reggie Jackson
I really believe that if Barry Bonds hadn’t been shut out of the game—and they pitched to him—he’d still be winning home-run titles, steroids or not. He was unbelievable there for a while. He overmatched the league.
Bob Gibson
With his skills, it’s hard to say where and how much steroids came into play. I remember when Bonds wasn’t nearly as big and strong as he became later; but the thing is, he just doesn’t miss the ball very much. He’s got such a short stroke. He doesn’t have that long, wild swing that most home-run hitters do. Has a great eye, besides.
Reggie Jackson
But when all is said and done, I can’t overlook the fact that, with the advent of steroids in baseball, there were guys who didn’t have power who suddenly got power. There were guys who didn’t throw hard who suddenly threw hard. Then, after testing, they lose eight or nine miles an hour in one year.
So can you acquire performance? You certainly can acquire power. You can acquire a fastball. You can acquire strength. Steroids!
Bob Gibson
For pitchers, a big advantage would be that, with steroids, you might be able to last longer in a game. Instead of getting tired in the sixth inning, you’re able to pitch eight or nine.
On the other hand, it’s been a while since pitchers went eight or nine innings on a regular basis.
Reggie Jackson
If my father ever thought I’d used steroids, he’d have raised holy hell with me.
He was in the car with me during spring training in Fort Lauderdale one year when I was playing for the Yankees. I stopped at a little store to get three packs of Redman fo
r Catfish Hunter, three packs of Levi Garrett for Ron Guidry, and a couple bags of sunflower seeds for myself. When I got back to the car, my dad was holding an empty beer can that had been under the seat. From there on, I couldn’t get to the ballpark fast enough. He went on and on for two weeks about how you’re going to embarrass your family name, people will think I haven’t raised you properly, your brothers and sisters will all be ashamed if the police pull you over and you get arrested for drinking in the car … This was in the seventies, in the South. If they stopped a black man with an open beer can in the car, he was going to jail, pure and simple. Dad was right, as usual.
My father was crippled, so he had a beach chair that he sat in between the dugout and where I played in right field. He was friends with Steinbrenner, and George came to the game that day and walked down the foul line to talk to my dad. They talked for about three innings. I was scared to death that my dad was going to tell Steinbrenner that I had an open beer can in my car. I came out of the game and was running in the outfield and George still wouldn’t leave. He just kept talking to my father. I was worried sick.