(Updated June 15, 2023)
Joe Gibbon grew up as a Cardinals fan in Mississippi, passed up a career in basketball for baseball and pitched in the major leagues for 13 seasons.
Gibbon spent his big-league career in the National League with the Pirates (1960-65 and 1969-70), Giants (1966-69), Reds (1971-72) and Astros (1972).
A left-hander who threw sidearm and possessed a sinking fastball, Gibbon was used as a starter and reliever. He had a record of 61-65 with 32 saves and a 3.52 ERA in the majors. Gibbon was 38-46 with a 3.98 ERA as a starter and 23-19 with a 2.73 ERA as a reliever.
Against the Cardinals, Gibbon was 3-9 with three saves and a 5.05 ERA, giving up 155 hits in 117.2 innings. Curt Flood batted .531 in 49 at-bats versus Gibbon, but Lou Brock hit .159 in 44 at-bats.
In the book “We Played the Game,” Cardinals catcher Tim McCarver, comparing the pitching motions of National League left-handers, said, “Sandy Koufax came over the top, so he wasn’t as frightening as left-handers like Joe Gibbon and (Pirates teammate) Fred Green.”
In his book, “Baseball for Brain Surgeons and Other Fans,” McCarver explained why he thought Gibbon was intimidating for a left-handed batter to face: “On his delivery, he’d drop his arm to first and our rear ends would follow. It was impossible to stay in against him. I said, ‘I’m going to stand away from the plate and I’ll take anything inside,’ but when I moved off the plate, he’d cleverly follow me with his sinker. I still couldn’t extend my arms. I’d lose all sense of where I was in the box.”
Hoops talent
Gibbon was born and raised in Hickory, Mississippi, a town named after President Andrew Jackson, who earned the nickname “Old Hickory” because of his toughness as an Army general.
Gibbon followed the Cardinals as a youth and his favorite player was Stan Musial, according to the Society for American Baseball Research. Gibbon listened on radio to the broadcast of Game 7 of the 1946 World Series when Harry Walker of the Cardinals drove in Enos Slaughter with the winning run against the Red Sox. Walker would become one of Gibbon’s managers in the big leagues.
At 6 feet 4, Gibbon was talented in baseball and basketball, excelling in both sports at the University of Mississippi. In the 1956-57 NCAA Division I basketball season, Gibbon was second in the nation in scoring, averaging 30 points and 14.1 rebounds a game. Grady Wallace of South Carolina averaged 31.2 points and he and Gibbon finished ahead of Seattle’s Elgin Baylor (29.7) and Kansas’ Wilt Chamberlain (29.6).
Gibbon was drafted by the NBA Boston Celtics but signed with the baseball Pirates in 1957. In 1959, his third season in the Pirates’ farm system, Gibbon was 16-9 with a 2.60 ERA for Class AAA Columbus, Ohio, gaining him a spot in the majors with the 1960 Pirates.
Rookie success
After earning two wins in relief in April 1960 for the Pirates, Gibbon’s first win as a big-league starter came against the Cardinals on May 19 at Pittsburgh.
Matched against 19-year-old Ray Sadecki, who was making his major-league debut for the Cardinals, Gibbon pitched six scoreless innings before yielding a run in the seventh and another in the eighth. The second run was scored by Musial, who walked in a pinch-hit appearance the first time he faced Gibbon.
Gibbon pitched 7.1 innings, allowing two runs, striking out seven and getting the win in an 8-3 Pirates triumph over the Cardinals. Boxscore
The Pirates won the 1960 National League pennant and Gibbon contributed with a 4-2 record. In the 1960 World Series against the Yankees, Gibbon made two relief appearances, surrendering a three-run home run to Mickey Mantle in Game 2 Boxscore and pitching a scoreless inning in Game 3. The Pirates won the championship in Game 7.
Birthday blast
In 1961, Gibbon earned 13 wins for the Pirates, but against the Cardinals he was 0-3 with a 7.71 ERA.
On Aug. 9, 1961, the Cardinals’ Julian Javier broke up a scoreless game with a grand slam against Gibbon in the eighth inning at Pittsburgh. Javier, a former Pirates prospect playing on his 25th birthday, hit an outside fastball down the right-field line and over the wall at Forbes Field. Boxscore
Six years later, on June 29, 1967, Gibbon started for the Giants against the Cardinals at St. Louis. The Giants scored 11 runs in the top of the first against Bob Gibson and Nelson Briles, but Gibbon couldn’t take advantage of the gift. He gave up two runs in the bottom half of the inning without getting an out and was lifted for a reliever. Boxscore
RetroSimba 
I went to a game in late June, 1967: Gibbon, pitching for the Giants, against Gibson. Neither made it out of the first inning.
Thanks. Very cool that you attended that game on June 29, 1967 Here’s a link to a story I did about it: https://retrosimba.com/2016/06/04/the-story-of-bob-gibson-and-his-worst-cardinals-start/
I forgot that I had also posted a comment on your previous story. The only times I saw Gibson pitch in 1967: the Giants’ rout, and the broken-leg game. In his big year of 1968, it was the rainout after three innings vs. Mike McCormick and the Giants. No, I was not at the seventh game of that year’s World Series.
Hah! That’s some kind of record.