Sixty Feet, Six Inches

by Bob Gibson

  Was that a lie? We had won three World Series in Oakland. Some of my new teammates might not have appreciated me saying it, but I was a star before I got to New York. That’s why George Steinbrenner gave me the big contract (although $600,000 a year is ashtray change for a good ballplayer nowadays). With free agency, we had finally reached the age when players could go to the highest bidder, and it was in my best interest to market myself. I was out in front with that—and Steinbrenner was smarter than I was to understand that if I marketed myself in New York, I’d be marketing the Yankees at the same time.

  So I was confident—cocky, if you must. I was likened to Muhammad Ali in that respect. Ali was cocky because he knew how good he was, and he knew that knowing it only made him better. His talent made him confident. I could relate to that.

  Cockiness is just confidence worn on the outside. And winking about it.

  Bob Gibson

  Solly Hemus did all he could to alienate me and destroy my confidence. Fortunately, his replacement, Johnny Keane, did all he could to embrace me and restore my confidence. When he took over as manager, Keane called me into his office and said, “Bob, I’ve think you’ve got good enough stuff to be one of the best pitchers in baseball. You’re going to be out there every five days for me. I don’t want you to have to worry about whether you’re going to pitch or not going to pitch.” Those good vibes turned everything around for me.

  Reggie Jackson

  Some of the best teammates are the ones who, in their own way, restore your confidence when you’re down. I was never down as low as I was that first year with the Yankees, and I had Fran Healy to thank for being an ally. He tried his best to keep my spirits up. That’s what being a teammate is all about; and being a friend.

  Bob Gibson

  Well, Dick Allen didn’t give me any pep talks, but I thought he was a pretty good teammate when he drove in 101 runs. I thought Curt Flood was a pretty good teammate when he was tracking down every fly ball hit in the direction of center field. I thought I was a pretty good teammate in 1968, when I had that 1.12 earned run average and threw forty-seven straight scoreless innings.

  In 1968, I felt I could throw the ball anywhere I wanted anytime I wanted to. If I wanted to be up and in, that’s where it was gonna be. The thing I had that year was control, and confidence in my control, which led to better control. Confidence feeds the beast. When you’re confident as a pitcher, you feel like you can put a ball on a corner without even looking. Bam! There it is. If you want to miss by just a little, you miss by just a little. It’s like magic.

  Of course, there are other times when you can’t get the ball where you want it to save your soul. I don’t know that there’s an explanation for that. I’m sure that mechanics have something to do with it, but why are your mechanics different from one day to the next, or one inning to the next, or one pitch to the next? The days you’ve got it going, they describe it as being in a zone. I don’t really know what that is.

  Maybe it’s just a heightened state of confidence.

  Reggie Jackson

  As important as confidence is, you’d think that players—and managers, for that matter—would work on it more. A lot of it was just my makeup, but I was constantly exercising the confidence muscle.

  Writers were surprised when they’d ask me if I’d intended to hit that home run that won the game and I’d say yeah, sure I had. I guess I was supposed to tell them that I was just trying to make good contact and was fortunate that the ball came in where I was looking for it; but I saw no reason to cover up my confidence. When I was in Oakland, I told at least one writer that I was going to be great and wanted to be the greatest ever. I told another that after Jackie Robinson, I was the most important black player in baseball history.

  I guess that was over-the-top, but let me explain what I meant. There were black players before me who spoke their minds when asked, but there weren’t many. There weren’t any who did it as freely and frankly as I did. I had a reputation for seeking out the media, and it was attributed to self-publicity, but it was more than that. I truly felt that I was raising the profile of the black ballplayer. That’s how I got the reputation for speaking out so much.

  Bob Gibson

  Troublemaker.

  Reggie Jackson

  Yes, I was sometimes labeled a troublemaker. When a white player would speak out, he’d be described as a coach on the field, or on the floor. When a black player spoke out, he was a troublemaker.

  Bob Gibson

  I was a troublemaker all my life. I read in the paper just the other day that I was outspoken. You don’t say?

  A guy like Hank Aaron spoke his mind, ultimately—when he was chasing Babe Ruth’s home-run record and had a platform—but for most of his career, Hank was very quiet. It was just his nature. He felt strongly about certain things, particularly when it came to discrimination or racial matters, but he wouldn’t make a fuss about it. I was more like Fred Sanford: Hey, man, don’t step out of line with me or else we might have to fight. That was my way of dealing with it. I didn’t know any other way.

  Reggie Jackson

  Especially when I got to New York and we were all over the papers every day, I felt very much like a … well, I’m reluctant to say celebrity, but a highly visible public figure. That was difficult, and it was crazy, but it was also good in a lot of ways. It was good for the Yankees, it was good for me financially, and for the most part it was good for my ego. What was good for my ego was good for my confidence and good for my game.

  I reveled in the attention. I know it sounds a little over-the-top again, but I was proud to be a superstar—a superduperstar, as Sports Illustrated once called me.

  And then, every so often, I’d be brought back down to earth. A company I worked with in Arizona, headed by my friend Gary Walker, did a lot with the Hopi Indians. I went to their reservation one year, late in my career—it was way out in the desert—and spoke to some of the Hopi kids about staying away from drugs and drink. Alcoholism was a problem there, and I thought I had a good, strong message for the young people. Then I called for questions and one of the parents raised his hand. I said, “Yes?”

  “Some of the children,” he said, “would like to know who you are.”

  Hmmm … That’ll check you! I guess a little humility never hurt anybody.

  Reggie Jackson

  It’s rare that a star player doesn’t run out a ball or give his best effort on the field. They don’t know any other way. Think of Derek Jeter. Think of Albert Pujols. Okay, don’t think of Manny Ramirez, but even Manny can win a game with a hustle play.

  How do you say this without a double negative? Great players do not not play hard. They do not take it easy, ever. It’s the same thing whether it’s Charles Barkley, Jack Nicklaus, Jimmy Brown, Frank Robinson, or Joe Montana.

  I didn’t have to make sure I played hard. I just did.

  Bob Gibson

  It’s not a plan. It’s natural.

  Reggie Jackson

  In terms of style and stuff, there’s a huge difference between Randy Johnson on the mound and Greg Maddux on the mound. But the thing they have in common is that you’re going to get everything they have. Just because one of them is only throwing eighty-eight miles an hour, that doesn’t mean he’s not pouring it all out there. Greg Maddux is giving you not only all of his arm, but all of his legs, all of his heart, and all of his brain. When they say a guy “leaves it all out there,” that’s the definition.

  Bob Gibson

  There were some days when I wasn’t very good, even to the point where I got booed. But that didn’t mean I gave less than everything I had on that particular day. I don’t know that there was ever, ever, a day that I went out there and didn’t give it every single thing I had.

  When you play hard every time out, you don’t have a problem gaining the respect of the guys in the clubhouse or the writers who follow the team. I made sure I covered that base. Nobody could ever leave the park saying that I jaked it
. They could say I was horse spit, and I might have been, but that was the worst of it.

  Reggie Jackson

  I credit Bobby Winkles for instilling the hustle ethic in me. Winkles wanted the game played his way, and he got what he wanted.

  I tried out for the Arizona State team during the spring of my freshman year. Did it for a five-dollar bet with a guy in my dorm. There had been only one fair-skinned black player on the ASU baseball team, and Joe Paulsen bet me I couldn’t make it. My plan was to make the team, collect my five dollars, and not play. So one day after spring football practice, I ran over to the baseball field with all my gear still on. Winkles agreed to watch me bat. I took off my helmet and shoulder pads, stepped up to the plate, and swung and missed a pitch or two. Fouled a few off. Then I hit a couple out of the park.

  I made the team and didn’t quit. You couldn’t quit on Bobby Winkles. He was a tremendous teacher and motivator who demanded that you gave maximum effort at all times. Before long, he had me running back to the dugout after a strikeout—which was a lot of running, actually. After playing for Winkles, I never thought about taking it easy on a baseball field.

  That’s why I was so upset in 1977 when Billy Martin yanked me out of a game in Boston, in the middle of an inning, on national television. It was after I’d allowed a batter to get a double out of a bloop hit that fell in front of me. He sent Paul Blair out to right field to take my place, right on the spot. I might have been tentative on the play, and it might have looked bad, but I would never loaf after a ball. My manager should have known that. My teammates did—even the ones I wasn’t getting along with.

  Bob Gibson

  I always ran hard to first base, which a lot of pitchers don’t do. A reporter asked me one time, “Why do you run so hard on a ground ball?”

  I said, “You know, I run three times a game from home to first, less than twice a week. Why can’t I run hard?”

  Reggie Jackson

  It takes no ability to run hard. It takes ability to run fast. If you can run hard and fast, that’s what you should do, every time.

  Bob Gibson

  Somebody might drop the ball. Strange things happen when you hustle. Everything you do, do it hard.

  Now, with all that said, if there was a guy who could hit like Reggie and didn’t run hard all the time, I’d still like to have him on my side.

  Reggie Jackson

  I would, too. But that would never be the case with me.

  I saw Jimmy Leyland a while back and he introduced me to his family as a guy who played the game the way it should be played. I pride myself on comments like that—more than I do the long home runs I hit, or the three home runs in a World Series game. I even ran hard to first when I hit a ground ball back to the pitcher. Every time.

  Hustle should be a habit. It should be a reflex, like shielding your eyes when you’re looking into the sun. Hustle doesn’t absolve you of your sins, but it helps. When I was in slumps, they didn’t look so bad because I played hard, every play.

  Sometimes, though, it can be prudent for a player to hold back a bit. I can understand a guy like Ken Griffey Jr. not running all-out on an easy ground ball, because he had three or four years when he just walked onto the field and got hurt. He’d swing and miss and break his toe. He’d jog to first on a base on balls and blow a hamstring. That guy would’ve had a shot at eight hundred home runs if his body hadn’t broken down. I mean, he tore a hamstring off the bone. After a while, you’re going to check yourself. You don’t want to end your career on a tap back to the pitcher. But if you watch Griffey closely, you’ll notice that he never goes half-speed after a fly ball or when he’s trying to take an extra base. He hustles. It’s just that, after the problems he’s had with injuries, he hustles smart.

  That’s what a manager wants. I had hamstring issues, and I never let up because of them; but there are times when the good of the ball club has to outweigh your own personal pride. Dick Howser talked to me about that when he was managing the Yankees. I ran into a wall one day and he said, “Look, I want that shillelagh of yours to get to the plate.” A shillelagh is like a wooden club, an Irish thing.

  Bob Gibson

  You’ve got to wear a kilt to swing one of those, don’t you? I’d like to see that.

  Reggie Jackson

  We played hurt all the time. That was one of the first lessons I learned from Frank Robinson and Billy Williams. They both told me, “You don’t get hurt. You realize that, right? You play every day.” Hank Aaron used to tell his younger teammates that they needed to play 150 games a year.

  When he advised me to be careful out there, Howser also said that if he had to mention something to the press about me not diving after a ball or some such, he’d be happy to do so. I appreciated that, but I couldn’t change my style of play. I was going to slide, dive, fall, get hit by pitches, and I was not going to get hurt. My hamstrings didn’t always understand that, but my heart did.

  I owed that much to myself, the team, the owner, the fans, my family, and God. I was given the talent. It was my job to use it every day.

  Bob Gibson

  Of course, that was back then. There are still guys who play hurt and crash into fences and dive on their faces, but it’s going out of style. With the agents and big investments and guaranteed contracts and medical staffs they have today, players are generally less inclined to put their bodies on the line.

  And that’s not all bad. It’s less likely that you’ll have somebody pitching on a broken leg, which is what I did until it popped in half. It was when Roberto Clemente hit me right above the ankle with a line drive. Of course, I didn’t know it was broken at first. Our trainer, Bob Bauman, sprayed it with ethyl chloride and I told him he was spraying the wrong spot because that wasn’t where it hurt. He told me to take a look, and there was a dent in my skin the shape of a baseball. Then he put a little tape on it and I threw a couple soft pitches and thought, all right, it’s okay, let’s go. I walked Willie Stargell, got Bill Mazeroski to pop up, and on a three-two pitch to Donn Clendenon I was trying to open up on a fastball and, pow, the fibula bone snapped in two. Today, I wouldn’t have been out there after the line drive hit me. I’d have been taken somewhere for an X-ray. You don’t even have to limp around; they just take you.

  Anyway, for a few years afterwards, every young pitcher who came to the Cardinals heard that story. We didn’t have many guys missing games with stiff necks or blisters on their feet.

  Reggie Jackson

  There are times when your body just can’t handle it; but there’s no question that players have different levels of tolerance. If a guy always has an excuse why he can’t play, he probably doesn’t have the heart to be great. He’s too easily defeated. Give me the guy who will do whatever it takes to succeed, whatever the circumstances. Jeter comes to mind. When he’s hurt, he won’t tell anyone.

  That was how my dad taught me. When he gave me a job, he didn’t want to hear why I couldn’t get it done. He was awfully proud when I became a big-league all-star, but I don’t know if that made him any prouder than he was the day he sent me to the store for some Neapolitan ice cream.

  We lived about half a block from an intersection with two grocery stores, a gas station and Fleischer’s Drug Store, where you could get a cherry Coke or chocolate soda at the soda fountain. One evening my father sent me out for a pint of Neapolitan ice cream, which was about twenty-five cents at the time. I had a quarter, but Fleischer’s didn’t have any Neapolitan that day, so I went across the street to Kelso’s Market and borrowed another quarter from Bob Kelso. Then I went to Bob Bradshaw, who owned the Mobil gas station—the big, red, flying Pegasus—and borrowed a quarter from him. With seventy-five cents now, I walked back across the street to Fleischer’s and bought a pint of chocolate, a pint of vanilla, and a pint of strawberry. Then I ran back home and told my father, “Dad, they didn’t have a pint of Neapolitan, but I got one of each. You owe Uncle Bob Kelso a quarter and you owe Mr. Bradshaw a quarter, too,
because I had to borrow money from them.”

  He looked at me and said, “Good job, son. You did what you had to do.”

  That was the mentality that pervaded our household. I have an older brother who, now that we’re grown up, is about half my size. But when I was ten or twelve and he was twenty, he’d whup my butt if I didn’t get in the kitchen and do the dishes or take out the trash or whatever chores I was supposed to do.

  Bob Gibson

  Sometimes a little cuff behind the head really helps you focus.

  Reggie Jackson

  If he caught me not doing my job, my dad would instruct my oldest brother or my sister to get the strap and tell Reggie—or he called me Boone; that was a nickname I got from a guy who worked for him—to get on up the stairs and take his clothes off, get ready for “a lickin’.” I’d be up in my bed, waiting, sniffling and crying. About two hours later he might have forgotten, but I’d still be crying in the bed, waiting for him.