Let’s talk about Bob Gibson - A Hunt and Peck

Because it is always a good time to talk about Gibby.

By lil_scooter93 Dec 19, 2017, 1:35pm EST

When scanning the Internets for things to include in today’s Hunt and Peck, I stumbled across this tweet about Bob Gibson:

If you hit a Home Run, dont run too slow, dont run too fast. If you happen to want to celebrate, get in the tunnel. If he [Bob Gibson] hits you, dont charge the mound, he's a Gold Glove boxer. Damn, what about my 17 game hitting streak? That was the night it ended - Hank Aaron pic.twitter.com/hPoBVDucJ0
— VintageBaseball (@OldTimeHardball) December 18, 2017

It is amusing because it is Bob Gibson, the biggest badass of any player that ever played. He is the man that finished the inning after Roberto Clemente broke his leg on a line drive. He “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,” said Dick Allen. He was the only man to intimidate Dusty Baker besides his daddy. Bob Gibson threw eight complete World Series games of the nine he started. The list goes on.

But was he really like that?

Every time I hear a Bob Gibson story like this, it brings me to read Joe Posnanski’s article about the man, the myth, and the legend. It was originally written in 2010 and updated again in 2015. Even after several years, it is still one of my favorite things written about baseball. It has the excellent Gibby anecdotes, it waxes poetic about his toughness, but it shows more than what we all know about Bob Gibson. It shows what we love about him.

“I wasn’t mean. I don’t buy into any of it. I was just doing my job. You hear people talk about this glare that I had. You know, I’ve been wearing glasses for almost 60 years. I wasn’t glaring… I just couldn’t see the catcher’s signals. I was just trying to see. That’s all. But people turn everything into something else.”

Bob Gibson is the coolest. Let’s watch some videos.