Batters couldn’t produce a run against Bob Gibson, so he did it for them.
On July 1, 1968, Gibson’s streak of 47.2 scoreless innings ended when he threw a wild pitch, enabling Len Gabrielson to score from third base in the first inning at Dodger Stadium.
Gibson had pitched shutouts in each of his five previous starts for the Cardinals. In the start after facing the Dodgers, Gibson shut out the Giants, giving him six shutouts in seven games.
If not for the wild pitch, Gibson may have achieved seven consecutive shutouts. He allowed one run over 63 innings in seven consecutive complete-game starts.
Marquee matchup
After consecutive shutouts versus the Astros, Braves, Reds, Cubs and Pirates, Gibson was matched against the Dodgers’ Don Drysdale. From May 14 to June 8, Drysdale pitched six shutouts in a row and put together a streak of 58.1 consecutive scoreless innings.
A crowd of 54,157 came out to Dodger Stadium to see whether Gibson could match Drysdale’s shutout streak. The paid attendance was 42,603 but the total crowd included straight-A students and Girl Scouts who were guests of the Dodgers. The start of the game was delayed 11 minutes to accommodate the late-arriving throng.
In the first inning, Gibson got Willie Davis to ground out to second and Paul Popovich to pop out to first. After Gabrielson singled, Tom Haller hit a groundball to second. Julian Javier ranged to his left, lowered the glove and appeared ready to make the stop, but the ball eluded him and went into right field for a single. Gabrielson advanced to third on the play.
“Bad hop,” Javier said to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “It looked as if it would hit me in the face, so I put my glove up.”
Ron Fairly was up next.
Tough to handle
With the count at 0-and-1, Gibson threw a pitch down and in to Fairly. “A wild fastball,” Gibson said.
“It was one of the hardest thrown balls I’ve ever seen,” Fairly told the Los Angeles Times. “It came screaming in low and he had a lot on it.”
Johnny Edwards was the Cardinals’ catcher. Manager Red Schoendienst started Edwards instead of the regular catcher, Tim McCarver, because Edwards “is a better thrower than McCarver and the Dodgers are a running club,” reported Dayton Daily News columnist Si Burick.
Edwards set up for a pitch on the outside corner but the ball sailed inside to the left-handed batter.
Gibson’s pitch “hit the dirt on the back of the plate,” Edwards said. “I tried to shift for it. I got my bare hand on it. It caromed off, hit the umpire’s shin guard and bounced in the opposite direction.”
As the ball bounded off the screen, Gabrielson advanced from third base, stomped on home plate with both feet, ran to the dugout “and leaped flat-footed as if he had just stolen home in the World Series,” the Los Angeles Times reported.
The run was the first allowed by Gibson since Ed Charles of the Mets hit a solo home run against him on June 2.
After Fairly grounded out, Edwards approached Gibson in the dugout and said, “I’m sorry. I tried.”
Gibson shrugged.
Redbirds rally
The Cardinals tied the score, 1-1, in the second when Bobby Tolan scored from third on Javier’s sacrifice fly and went ahead, 2-1, in the sixth when Curt Flood scored from third on Orlando Cepeda’s sacrifice fly.
In the seventh, the Cardinals stretched their lead to 5-1 with three runs against Drysdale. Javier scored from third on Gibson’s ground out to second. Lou Brock and Flood each followed with a RBI-single.
Drysdale was lifted after yielding five runs, 10 singles and a walk in 6.1 innings.
Gibson worked out of jams in the eighth and ninth. With runners on first and third, one out, in the eighth, Gibson retired Gabrielson on a fly out to shallow left and got Haller to ground out.
In the ninth, with one out, ex-Cardinal Ken Boyer walked, Jim Lefebvre singled and Boyer went to third. Gibson got Wes Parker to pop out to third and struck out Bob Bailey, completing the 5-1 victory and improving his season record to 10-5. Boxscore
Blame game
When Gibson got to the clubhouse and saw the pack of reporters waiting to quiz him about the wild pitch, he shouted for his teammates to hear, “It was the catcher’s fault. He loused it up.”
Flood fired back with a needle at Gibson, “Forget it. If it wasn’t the wild pitch, you’d have found some other way to louse it up.”
Brock chimed in, “Did you throw a spitter?” His teammates roared with laughter.
To ensure journalists knew he was joking about blaming Edwards, Gibson said, “It was my fault. I have no excuses.”
“I didn’t have control of my fastball,” Gibson told The Sporting News. “I normally don’t have much trouble with my fastball.”
Asked whether he was disappointed to miss out on a sixth consecutive shutout, Gibson said, “Nobody thinks about pitching a shutout. Sportswriters and fans are more concerned with records than the players are. The important thing is to win.”
Asked whether he’d felt pressure in trying to maintain the scoreless streak, Gibson responded, “Pressure? Call it aggravation. I had more pressure on me when I was growing up as a kid.”
In 304.2 innings pitched in 1968, Gibson threw four wild pitches.
Years later, in his 1994 book “Stranger to the Game,” Gibson said the pitch he threw to Fairly deflected off the tip of Edwards’ mitt. “Frankly, I thought it should have been (ruled) a passed ball since the pitch was not in the dirt and Edwards got his glove on it,” Gibson said.
“It wouldn’t have been good form to complain about the call, but I disagreed with it,” Gibson said.
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