Odes to Bob Gibson

“(Hank Aaron told me) ‘Don’t dig in against Bob Gibson, he’ll knock you down. He’d knock down his own grandmother if she dared to challenge him. Don’t stare at him, don’t smile at him, don’t talk to him. He doesn’t like it. If you happen to hit a home run, don’t run too slow, don’t run too fast. If you happen to want to celebrate, get in the tunnel first. And if he hits you, don’t charge the mound, because he’s a Gold Glove boxer.’ I’m like, ‘Damn, what about my 17-game hitting streak?’ That was the night it ended.”
—Dusty Baker

“Gibson was so mean, he’d knock you down and then meet you at home plate to see if you wanted to make something of it.”
—Dick Allen

“Between games, (Willie) Mays came over to me and said, ‘Now, in the second game, you’re going up against Bob Gibson.’ I only half-listened to what he was saying, figuring it didn’t make much difference. So I walked up to the plate the first time and started digging a little hole with my back foot…No sooner did I start digging that hole than I hear Willie screaming from the dugout: ‘Noooooo!’ Well, the first pitch came inside. No harm done, though. So I dug in again. The next thing I knew, there was a loud crack and my left shoulder was broken. I should have listened to Willie.”
—Jim Ray Hart

“I’m in the league two weeks, playing in St. Louis. [Bob] Gibson hits a double, I’m playing second base. I go over and say, ‘What’d you hit, Gibby, a fastball?’ And he stood there like this, not moving, not saying anything. So maybe I didn’t say it loud enough. ‘What’d you hit, Gibby, a fastball?’ Nothing. Now the inning’s over, my manager’s Fred Hutchinson, I went over and said, ‘Hey, skipper, let me ask you a question.’ He said, ‘What do you want, rook?’ I said, ‘Is Bob Gibson a deaf mute?’ He said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘I asked him what he hit, and he won’t talk to me.’ He said, ‘No, he don’t talk to the opposition.’ So the next day I’m out there early hanging on to the cage watching Groat and Boyer and Musial and Julian Javier. And Gibson comes out of the dugout. In those days there wasn’t fraternizing, and I’m watching batting practice. And he walks by me and says, ‘It was a slider, rook.’ It took him 24 f–king hours, but he talked to me!”
—Pete Rose

Tim McCarver once went to the mound when Bob Gibson was pitching and was quickly told to return. “The only thing you know about pitching is that you can’t hit it.”

“Barry Bonds? I’ll tell you what, if he hit a home run off Gibson or (Don) Drysdale and stood and admired it, they’d knock that earring out of his ear the next time up.” – National League Umpire Doug Harvey

One night Dusty Baker saw Gibson eating in a restaurant. His teammates encouraged him to walk over and say hello. “It’s OK,” they told him. “It’s away from the field. This is a good time. Bob will be happy to talk.” Then, while those teammates snickered, Baker and his wife walked over and, Dusty said, “Excuse me, Mr. Gibson.”
And Gibson looked up and without even a hint of a smile he snarled, “Why the *$*#&$* should I talk to you?” Then he looked past Dusty, to his wife, and said, “It’s very nice to meet you Mrs. Baker.”

Bob Gibson on Bob Gibson

“Have you ever thrown a ball 100 miles an hour? Everything hurts. Even your ass hurts. I see pictures of my face and say, ‘Holy shit’, but that’s the strain you feel when you throw. I had one of those faces you look at it, man, and say, ‘Man he’s an ass-hole.’ Could be, depends on if you pissed me off or not.”

“When I knocked a guy down, there was no second part to the story.”

“Why do I have to be an example for your kid? You be an example for your own kid.”

“I’ve played a couple of hundred games of tic-tac-toe with my little daughter and she hasn’t beaten me yet. I’ve always had to win. I’ve got to win.” Source: The Summer Game by Roger Angell

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