broy, about bob gibson

[bills16]

i don't remembe the exact details, but in the past couple of years gibby got involved in a little bit of road rage in omaha. i believe some guy cut him off and gibby followed lhim to possibly a gas station and he had a little talk with this person and i believe a few punches were exchanged. someone with a better memory than me can correct the details but i do remember there was an altercation.

bytheway, i'm 46, graduated from college in 79 and 83 but not from slu. i remember watching harry rogers play on tv on the valley game of the week.

i've only been to one slu game and that was in 1982 when virginia tech had dale solomon. i doubt 2000 people were there.

i've been in radio since 84 and live a couple of hundred miles northwest of mt. vernon, iowa. mt. vernon is a beautiful small town with cornell college there. my wife went to high school near mt.vernon.

[Nebraska_Bob]

From what I remember reading in the paper, Gibby pulled out in front of someone who in turned got in front of him and slammed on his brakes causing Gibby to do the same. He then followed him and when the guy he was following stopped for gas, Gibby threw him a high hard one and they ended up per one witness rolling around on the ground at the gas station. The gas station was several miles from where the original incident started. Whenever anyone comes to town, I point out the gas station and jokingly remark there is a little sign there indicating where the fight occurred. Anyways, every year Gibby puts on a celebrity golf tournament raising money for charities. I attend it and it gives me a chance to see all those old great ballplayers from the past up close. I believe Gibby is quite proud of what he achieves with this tournment.

[bills16]

thanks bob for filling in the rest of the details. whenever i'm in ames and we go by the burger king on lincolnway i call it the the sam mack burger king. former iowa state player sam mack who played under johnny orr was involved in a bizarre robbery of that burger king . mack allegedly was forced at knife point to go with an iowa state football player to rob the burger king. that burger king used to have all the pictures of the cyclone players on the wall. easy mug id i guess. mack went to trial and was not convicted but trasfered to i believe arizona state and got in trouble there before playing in the nba. to me it will always be the sam mack burger king.

[billiken_roy]

my first memory of major league baseball in person was 1967 in a cardinal game vs the pirates. gibson was pitching and clemente hit a line drive that hit him in the leg and careemed far from him. not realizing it at the time (i was 8) but somehow, gibson got up and tried to throw a pitch while the manager and trainer looked on. he then collapsed and was more or less carried off the field. the guy had a broken leg! he was the toughest baseball player i ever saw. never wanted to come out. never heard about aches and pains. typically a league leader in innings pitched. controlled the game in every way when he took the mound. if we still had gibson's pitching today, baseball wouldnt have evolved to this mamby pamby please dont hit me - i can only pitch every 6 days and when i do i should only throw 100 pitches then save me with a closer game that it is today. with hitters wearing armour to the plate and demanding it is their right to hit homeruns and by god no pitcher better challenge him. i will take the days of the 60's and 70's baseball anyday. and gibson was an example of how the game should be played. today's youngsters have been cheated out of how the game should be played.

[bonwich]

I thought I remembered this story, so I looked it up:

Their chances looked grim on July 15. Pitching against the Pirates, Gibson took a line drive from Roberto Clemente's bat off his right leg.

`I Figured It Was Bruised'

Gibson's initial thought when the ball caromed off his leg: "Ouch."

But he never thought about coming out of the game. The trainer numbed the area with a spray, and "there was no way I thought it was broken," Gibson said. "I'd been hit with balls before. I figured it was bruised."

He threw three more pitches.

"Then, it popped," Gibson said. "When I heard that, I knew I was in trouble."

[billiken_roy]

thanks bonwich! like i said, he was one tough man. after 36 years the memory starts to blur.

[slufanskip]

You are exactly right about the good old days of baseball ... it is not the same sport. I am 42 and fell in love with baseball in the late 60's and early 70's. I think the sport started to decline with free agency ... but the biggest thing is guaranteed contracts ... they have created a lot of atheletes like JD Drew.

I moved to Stl. when I got out of the Air Force in 1990 ... knowing no one here ... purely because I loved the Cardinals. ... now I attend 3-5 games a year ... and always get tickets from people selling them out front at about half of face value ...

Our beloved Billikens ... have now taken the place of the Cardinals to me

[billiken_roy]

skip, ironically the owners hung themselves on the guaranteed contract deal. i read where marvin miller originally approached the owners with NO guaranteed contracts in the initial collective bargaining agreement. miller knew the ramifications but threw that in in an effort to get the other perks he wanted. the owners in their infinite wisdom thought that it would have the opposite ramifications and asked to take that out. miller said he couldnt believe it but readily agreed. but you are correct, i would say guaranteed contracts and binding arbitration are nasty and have definitely changed attitudes and approaches to the game.

[alameda bob]

I used to work for the Equitable Ins. Co. who managed major league baseballs pension funds, and sponsored the "Old Timers games" several years ago in every stadium. Since we have 2 bay area teams, I met lots of the old guys at the dinners the night before and breakfast the morning of the "Game ( which was a couple 3 innings before the real game started) Each player got a $1,000 to show up and it was serious $$ to some of the older guys! I said to Gibby "You probably don't remember me, but we hooped at SLU in the West Pine Gym." He looked at me kinda funny and said "you're right....I don't remember you" with a straight face. I cracked up.

The most personable guy at those functions was Joe Garagiola. One of our pre-21 hangouts back then was the Savoy Gardens on the Hill, and he loved to talk about his old hood. He would often be the MC and get very emotional when talking about the $10K donation the Equitable made to BAT at each game and what it meant to the widows and real old guys who played before the pension plan started.

I have a priceless pennant signed by about 10 Hall of Famers on my basement wall from those days, next to a photo of Stan the Man and Willie Mays together on the field, and a 6 frame photo of Stan's swing that is really sweet. How is he doing these days?

[billiken_roy]

while i dont know stan personally, this summer my son's legion team, the belleville hillgards, had their new baseball field dedicated (it is titled whitey herzog field as whitey has been very instrumental in the fund raising needed to build the field and facilities). whitey brought stan along to the ceremonies and they had to find stan a chair to sit down during the ceremonies. he did however get up when he was introduced, wave, flash that great smile and take an imaginary swing for the crowd.

[Schasz]

I guess that I have to be lumped into the old timers group, as I actually saw Stan the Man play baseball for the Cardinals. The first time that I watched him play was at the old Busch Stadium aka Sportsman Park. Stan played 1st base then moved out to LF for his final year or two. I met him a couple times at his old restauant. Heck, my wife and I had our wedding reception at that restaurant 25 years this past Tues. He was a very nice man. Before we moved from St. Louis, my wife worked at Barnes St. Peters Hospital and Stan's son in law was a Dr. at that hospital.

[alameda bob]

Schaz Happy Anniversary to you and the missus. Does anyone know what happened to Stan's son Dickie? He was a great athlete at CBC. I think his best sport was football. He was even older than me.

You younguns that missed seeing Stan should look up his stats. I still have not seen a better clutch hitter. The old timer pitchers I talked to like Spahn, Feller and Robin Roberts all said they FEARED Stan the Man. No kidding!!

[bonwich]

Dick Musial went on to be a partner (with Biggie's son) in the Stan & Biggie's business, which ultimately had a bunch of business failures. Here's the most recent item I could find on him, from 1998:

"Jeff and Eileen Musial seem to be starting their own baseball team with the recent birth of their fourth child, Lucy Katherine Musial. Grandparents are Sharon and Dick Musial and Elizabeth and Frank Galligan. Great-grandparents are Lil and Stan Musial, Kate and Russ Edgar, and Mary Galligan and Elizabeth Hand."