Shocker! Sportswriter Notices That We’re Not in the Bob Gibson Era Anymore

Every time  some issue comes up about unwritten rules in baseball, legendary pitcher Bob Gibson gets cited as somehow being the arbiter of all that is correct and true in the game. Sportswriter Tracy Ringolsby is the  latest sportswriter to use Gibson as the cliche about how real ball was played back in the Good Old Days.

“Respect for the grand old game eroding,” Ringolsby’s Fox Sports article about how young whippersnappers like Alex Rodriguez are disrespecting the game, is  a melange of every sports cliche you can think of complaining about These Kids Today. You’ve got your yelling about unwritten rules being broken, and your griping about fraternization, capped with an anecdote about how Gibson once deliberately hit a batter in the neck because the hitter was digging in at home plate. Charming.

Thanks to sportswriters like Ringolsby and broadcasters like Tim McCarver, about all that baseball fans under 40 know about Bob Gibson is that he was the self-appointed enforcer of every unwritten rule in baseball. Hitter walks on the mound – Gibson plunks him. Hitter digs in at the plate – Gibson plunks him. Hitter hits a home run  – Gibson plunks him. Hitter snaps his gum – Gibson plunks him. (Actually, I have no evidence that the last thing happened, but it sure sounds like something McCarver would say Gibson once did, doesn’t it?)

And all the Gibson stories are told so admiringly. Like the one of McCarver relating about how the pitcher plunked Pete LaCock (“Hollywood Squares” host Peter Marshall’s son) in an Old-Timers’ Game, as revenge for the journeyman hitting a homer off him in Gibson’s last career appearance. Maybe it’s just me, but when I heard that Ty Cobb sharpened his spikes before an Old Timers’ Game, I didn’t think he was charmingly competitive. I thought he was kind of wacky.

That’s what I kind of think about Gibson – or, at least, about all these  Gibson stories told with such fondness. Yes, they don’t play ball like that anymore. Thank goodness!

Because even back in the day, Gibson was kind of an exception to the rule. He wouldn’t even fraternize  with fellow NLers during the All-Star Game. Now that’s intense!

Funny thing is, that the real Gibson – not the hero of all these tales – is a bit more complex and thoughtful than these anecdotes indicate. And for somebody who’s used so often as the reminder of how the good old days were so much better than now, he is far more accepting of some modern behavior than you’d think.

For example, performance-enhancing drugs. He told ESPN’s Mike and Mike last summer (emphasis added):

Guys have always been cheating. Period. It just takes a little different form today. I’m just glad they didn’t have steroids when I was playing. I don’t know what I would have done.…

I don’t know that I really criticize the guys. Whoever the first guy is that started it, that’s the guy I criticize. The rest of the guys just followed suit. I don’t think its OK. I’m not sanctioning it, but I understand why it happens.”

When asked whether he would support allowing users of performance-enhancing drugs into the Hall of Fame, he replied, “Oh yeah, I think so.”

This spring, he made a wry observation about his rather intense personality:

Gibson, one of the game’s fiercest competitors, said, “They tell me I would have been a lot meaner (if he had taken steroids). They tell me that I would have been more tense and intense. I didn’t need that.”

The real Bob Gibson seems a lot more observant of human fraility,  and a lot more accepting of modern players’ failings, than the cartoon one sportswriters use as a crutch to malign today’s ballplayers. Too bad we don’t get to hear the real Gibson’s opinions as much as we do the caricature.

Photo by Wikimedia Commons