by Bob Gibson
To Kimberly Jackson, who never saw me play: Some words
about the past, and what great fun it was—RJ
To Wendy, who has been my life after baseball—BG
CONTENTS
Introduction
One The Pitched Battle
Two Mechanics
Three Stuff
Four Corners
Five Scenarios
Six The Other Guys
Seven Things That a Fellow Just Has to Deal With
Eight Atmosphere
Nine Towering Figures
Ten Makeup
Eleven Forty Years of Change
Acknowledgments
INTRODUCTION
There was a time when Bob Gibson was loath to talk baseball—to talk anything—with a fellow from another team. It was part of his mystique, which translated into the game’s deadliest competitive edge, with which—along with a pretty fair slider and fastball—he blew away more than three thousand big-league batters, won seven consecutive World Series games (completing every one), and dominated his own league so absurdly (there was that unimaginable 1.12 earned run average in 1968) that baseball officials, throwing up a backhanded salute to him and his near-peers, were compelled to tamp down the mound and squeeze the strike zone to give the failing, flailing hitters a more sporting chance.
These days, ol’ number 45 is more generous with his conversation, and in fact, for the purposes of this book, set out in search of a fraternal Hall of Famer—one possessed of conspicuous oratorical and hitting skills—with whom to banter about the dynamics and mechanics, the complexities and perplexities, the ins, the outs, and the inevitable betweens of the game they both mastered. When he flipped through the pages of leading suspects, every one of them had Reggie Jackson’s mug shot on it.
The game has no better talker than the tailor’s son from Philly, and no thinker more thorough. Nor has the World Series ever produced a greater batsman. Gibson being the Classic’s foremost starting pitcher, there’s a sacred place in October where only the two of them have been. There’s a language, in turn, that only they can speak. And they do it here.
Their book is kick-back, nitty-gritty dialogue between leaders of the rival pitchers and hitters lobbies, an epic matchup of right vs. left and the hottest hard stuff against the wickedest rip. It’s a give-and-take compressed from sixty-feet-six to facing chairs, a volley of views about sliders on the corner and fastballs in the back; about playing under pressure, through pain, and over the decades; about frank recollections and Frank Robinson; about full counts, full swings, full bases, and conventional wisdom that’s simply full of it. It’s about the ways the various parts of the plate are regarded by the guy with the ball, the guy with the bat, and don’t forget the gentleman with the little whisk broom. It’s about pitches that can’t be hit and those that can, and how, in the case of the latter, one man’s eleven o’clock highlight can ruin another’s week, or year, even career. It’s about what Jackson sees in Derek Jeter that he once observed in Roberto Clemente, and in Greg Maddux that so impressed him about Tom Seaver. It’s not about life stories or stories of any sort, for that matter, unless they illustrate what occurs when, say, a Dick Allen, in Gibson’s experience—could be Manny Ramirez, same thing—is presented with the loitering curveball that he happens to be on the lookout for.
Gibson and Jackson also share a characteristic candor that has not always contributed to their respective popularity but gussies up the printed page. I was, of course, more familiar with Gibson’s legendary demeanor, having collaborated on his autobiography (Stranger to the Game) some years back. Because of that, folks ask all the time what the man is really like, because, well, there was that mystique, if you will. In deference to my favorite pitcher, I won’t entirely blow his cover, other than to say that Bob Gibson was a genius of gamesmanship, a ballplayer to whom winning was a lifestyle (and to say, also, that he has apparently reached a lengthy period of accommodation and congeniality). If he seemed inordinately serious—and believe me, he’s not, in the grander scheme—it’s because seriously is how he took the game. The former Harlem Globetrotter bit off baseball by the chunk. And after half a century of chewing on it, he was ready to write his review.
His is a voice that still silences the room. In the matter of Gibson, it’s more than mere personality that has captivated so many people. They remain fascinated by the searing, uncompromised competitiveness he flaunted in his seventeen-year career with the Cardinals. In the decades since, Gibson has simmered into a living symbol of that very thing. It’s particularly telling that the folks most infatuated by his flaming ferocity are cap-tipping fans of the old Yankees, Red Sox, and Tigers, the teams against which he proved his champion’s mettle.
The last of those World Series seasons happened to be 1968, the year that changed everything. The following summer was Jackson’s third in the big leagues, and his most prolific in terms of both home runs and RBIs. It was also the year in which the national media learned that, if they could just find Oakland, they could back up their trucks to the young slugger’s locker and load them with precious quotes and priceless color, the likes of which had never before been culled from a baseball clubhouse. In 1974, the year after he had been named MVP of both the American League and the World Series, Jackson was pronounced the world’s first “superduperstar” by Sports Illustrated. Three years later, the Yankees made him the richest player, as well. They were rewarded with daily headlines—never mind the details—and another World Series MVP performance, this time featuring home runs on four consecutive swings. When his new signature nickname was affixed, Mr. October glittered with such stunning effulgence that sporting celebrity had attained a new dimension.
If, as the generations turn, Gibson remains the standard for the old-school baseball ethic, Jackson occupies a similar station in terms of elocution and showmanship. He was a visionary in cultivating the advantages of media-friendliness, an unapologetic pioneer in the areas of style and self-marketing. The heavy cosmetics, however, obscured his studied dedication to the finer points of the game, which he applied with a surpassing intellect. For that matter, they obscured his emotional dedication to the game itself.
The chapters ahead reveal Jackson as the more ardent traditionalist of the two Cooperstowners, his sentimentality unchecked by the strain of pragmatism that tempers Gibson’s. Now employed by the Yankees, the erstwhile “straw that stirs the drink” has carried forward his constant cogitation on ballplaying, all the while couching his impressions in the context of what hooked him as a dazzled youngster smitten by stars and influenced by idols. Among the idolized was a no-fooling fireballer for St. Louis.
Jackson memorized every move of the men he so admired, and put it all into practice. The game was in his head, and by the time he was finished, 563 home runs were on his résumé. Ultimately, Reggie’s gift of perception was the principal reason that Gibson pitched him this project. Served it right up into the big guy’s wheelhouse.
That, for the record, would make Jackson the first left-handed power hitter that Gibson ever served something up to.
CHAPTER ONE
THE PITCHED BATTLE
Reggie Jackson
When I stepped into the box, I felt the at-bat belonged to me. Everybody else was there for my convenience. The pitcher was there to throw me a ball to hit. The catcher was there to throw it back to him if he didn’t give me what I wanted the first time. And the umpire was lucky that he was close enough to watch.
Gibson was the same way. That’s why people thought he was mean. And that’s the attitude you’ve got to have. When I hit, I felt I was in control of the home-plate area, and it was important that I felt that way. If I let the pitcher control it, it would give him an
advantage.
There are at least three kinds of advantages that the pitcher and batter contest. There’s the physical advantage, the strategic advantage, and also the psychological advantage. I didn’t want two out of three. I wanted them all.
The pitcher has the ball, and nothing happens until he lets go of it. So, as the batter, I felt I had to fight for any bit of control I could get. I expected the umpire, the catcher, and the pitcher to wait on me. I wanted to get ready on my time. I’d call time or pause or do something that wasn’t too annoying but at least would get the pitcher off his pace. If I could disrupt his rhythm a little bit, just for a second or two, the advantage swung to me. But I didn’t want to create an ire, some kind of anger to make him bear down harder. I didn’t want a guy to step back and grit his teeth. Being a jerk about it just doesn’t work. There’s a fine line between annoying somebody just a little bit and angering him to the point where you may get drilled in the back.
Bob Gibson
Him backing out of there all the time, that is annoying, because I liked to pitch in a hurry. But I never let it annoy me to the point that it distracted me. You don’t knock guys down for that kind of stuff. They give you plenty of other reasons to knock them down.
Reggie Jackson
Against the great pitchers, in particular, I’d try to break that rhythm. They’re going to try to pitch a fast game, under two hours if possible—although that hardly ever happens anymore. They want to get a flow going, throw strikes, get ahead, keep you off balance and on the defensive. They want you to get in the batter’s box, because they’re ready to pitch. If a pitcher stays in his groove, he’s going to be comfortable. He’s going to be on his game plan. So you have to get him out of that comfort zone any way you can. If I could do a little something to break that rhythm—make him say to the umpire, “Come on, get him in there, let’s go, let’s go!”—I might get a ball one. You want him thinking about something other than where he’s putting this first pitch. So you might step out, adjust your helmet, tie your shoe or something; but you want to be careful. You don’t want to get hit.
Bob Gibson
I got a chuckle out of the comment that a pitcher wants to keep the game under two hours. After I’d get through warming up in the bullpen and was sitting waiting to go out there, I’d always say to the guys, “Okay, an hour and fifty-seven minutes, let’s go!” They play better behind you if you’re working quickly.
Reggie Jackson
Ken Holtzman could pitch a game in ninety minutes. Wouldn’t throw a breaking ball. And he had a great breaking ball.
Bob Gibson
I did that once. Went a whole game without throwing a breaking ball—or threw two or three at the most. Got beat 2–1.
Reggie Jackson
It’s not just stepping out of the box or slowing things down. It’s any little edge you can get. When I went to home plate in a game-tied situation or with a chance to do something and help the ball club win one, I’d try to make eye contact with the pitcher.
Now, you didn’t do that with Hoot—that’s what a lot of us like to call Gibson, after the old Hollywood cowboy—or a Mickey Lolich or a Jim Palmer or a Catfish Hunter. You weren’t going to stare down those guys. But if a guy was a young player, I would wait to get into the box because I wanted him to look at me. If he wouldn’t look at me, I felt I had him beat. If a guy did make eye contact, you could find out if you could intimidate him. Later in my career, when I had the weight of a reputation behind me, I did that a lot.
Bob Gibson
Heck, I couldn’t see if a guy was looking at me or not. I had enough trouble trying to see the signs back there.
Tell you what I did, though. I used to look in and shake off signs just to mess with the hitters. Did that all the time. Tim McCarver would give me a sign and then give me another one that meant shake me off. The thing was, I didn’t have that many pitches to shake off to. So I’m out there shaking my head, and the batter’s thinking, “What the hell?”
Reggie Jackson
When I was with the Yankees in 1978, we were playing Baltimore at Yankee Stadium and the score was 3–3 going into the bottom of the ninth inning. I led off against Tippy Martinez—a little left-hander who always gave me trouble—and the count went to three-and-oh. I had the green light in that situation, but instead of digging into the box I stepped out and looked down to the third-base coach for a sign. Then I glared over there like I was ticked off and shot a look into the dugout at our manager, Dick Howser, pretending that I was angry about getting a take sign. After all that, I stepped into the box, the pitch came floating right down the middle, and I hit a game-winning home run. In fact, that was the only home run I ever hit against Tippy Martinez.
Bob Gibson
I got a lot of mileage out of looking angry. Sometimes it wasn’t intentional—like when I was squinting in for the signs and the batters thought I was glowering at them—but the fact is, I was deliberately unfriendly to the opposition. I wouldn’t even say hello to hitters on the other teams.
I didn’t want them knowing me. I didn’t want them knowing what I was like or what I was thinking. It was important to me that I retain an air of mystery. I never let the coaches put any kind of clock or gun on my pitches, because I didn’t want that information to get out. I wouldn’t talk to the team psychologist, because I didn’t want anybody figuring me out. I even asked our manager, Red Schoendienst, to keep me out of spring training games against National League teams, if at all possible. In spring training, you’re just working on stuff, not trying to get batters out all the time, and I thought that if they got up there and whacked me around a little bit it would only give them confidence. I didn’t want them confident. I wanted them wary of me. Uncertain. Intimidated.
The Pirates had a young outfielder named Gene Clines who came up to me before a game with a baseball and asked me to sign it. I took the ball and tossed it over my shoulder into left field.
Reggie Jackson
Everybody in the league knew I had trouble with the inside pitch. I got away with it only because the great majority of pitchers were afraid of making a mistake in that spot. The threat of power is one of the best weapons you have in the batter’s box. They were also concerned that if they missed inside, they’d hit me, put me on base. Now, for a guy like Gibson, that was okay. His attitude was, if I’m gonna miss, I’m gonna miss at you.
Bob Gibson
What pitchers are really afraid of is their own control. They don’t truly believe that they can get a pitch in there exactly where they want it—especially against a hitter as powerful as Reggie, who can put his team on the board at any moment. They know that if they miss in the wrong place, a power hitter will knock the crap out of it. But you can’t go out there with the attitude that you’re going to miss your spot. You can’t go out there afraid of the hitter or afraid of yourself. You’ve got to respect the hitter, though—some more than others, of course—and you’ve got to respect yourself.
Contrary to what people thought, I didn’t make my living on the inside corner. My idea was to pitch away, pitch away, pitch away, come in, pitch away. I mostly worked the outside part of the plate; but you can’t be scared to come in when the time or the hitter calls for it. The thing is, if I’m pitching a guy inside, I’m going to make sure I get it way in there. If you put the ball in the strike zone inside—especially against a guy who can hit the ball out of the ballpark—that’s horrible. Left-handed or right-handed batter, it doesn’t matter. Don’t do that.
Reggie Jackson
But see, I was a little different. If you got the ball away from me, I could actually hit it to right field. Not down the line. I never tried to hit the ball down the line. I never tried much to pull the ball at all, for that matter; but I could get it into right center, at least, if it was on the outside part of the plate.
If it was up and away, it didn’t matter to me whose fastball it was; I could handle it. But the ball on the inside part of the plate, I couldn’t hit
with power. I don’t know if it was because I was big through the arms and chest and got tied up when the pitch was in on me, or what; but if I swung at it, I was going to be in a slump. I’d even try backing up in the box so that I could extend my arms to hit the inside strike. When I did that, I was dead. I’d get a hard slider away, and I couldn’t even move. If you could pitch me inside and throw hard, I’d have to tip my cap to you and wait for you to make a mistake. But if you came inside and missed, I wasn’t going to miss.
Bob Gibson
It sounds like Reggie was a little like Eddie Mathews when it came to the inside pitch. Mathews was the only great hitter I ever pitched against who had what you might call a hole in his swing. And I found out about it by mistake. I kept pitching him away, pitching him away, and he kept hitting the ball through the right side. Most left-handers would try to go the other way with that pitch, but he’d just knock it through the hole between first and second. He got enough hits off me early in my career that he still batted over .300 against me overall. But one day I happened to throw a fastball, and it had pretty good hair on it, but, accidentally, it was right there on the inside part of the plate, belt high, just about the worst place you could throw a fastball to a power hitter. I went, “Oh no …” And he went, whoosh! Swung and missed it. Hmmm. Really?
I couldn’t quite get that. Other great hitters might struggle with curveballs, or something in the dirt, but not a pitch right on the plate like that. Mind you, this was my fastball, and it might have been a different story with a pitcher who didn’t throw with the velocity or movement that I had. But I never had any more trouble with Eddie Mathews after that. I just pitched him inside at the belt. And believe me, that was a major discovery, because it meant that I didn’t have to worry about Hank Aaron. I’d just let him go and get Mathews out.
