RetroSimba

(Updated Sept. 15, 2025)

On the night he pitched an immaculate inning, the Cardinals’ Bob Gibson also was perfect at the plate.

An immaculate inning is defined as using the minimum number of pitches, nine, to strike out the minimum number of batters, three.

On May 12, 1969, Gibson faced three Dodgers batters in the seventh inning and struck out each on three pitches. He also produced three singles and a walk in four plate appearances, scored a run and stole a base in the Cardinals’ 6-2 victory at St. Louis.

“Gibson did everything but put in AstroTurf,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch marveled.

9 perfect pitches

Gibson, 33, achieved his feat versus the trio of Len Gabrielson, Paul Popovich and John Miller. Gabrielson, a left-handed batter, and Popovich, a switch-hitter batting left, both struck out swinging. Miller, a right-handed batter substituting for starting pitcher Claude Osteen, struck out looking.

“I was throwing hard. All were good pitches,” Gibson said to the Post-Dispatch. “Good and low, most of them. Right on the corners. I don’t do that. Not nine straight pitches.”

Cardinals catcher Joe Torre said, “I’d just like to know what that Miller kid was thinking when Gibson shook me off twice on an 0-and-2 pitch. He shook me off a slider and then he shook off a curve. Then I called for a fastball and that’s what Gibson wanted. The kid took it.”

Gibson pitched a seven-hitter, fanned six and “proved he is just as good as ever _ and that’s almost as good as a pitcher can be,” the Los Angeles Times declared.

He told the Post-Dispatch he ached after throwing 123 pitches and the pain “starts here _ at the tip of my fingers _ and works up the arm and then into the shoulder and around down my side and all the way down to here _ my toes.”

In a 2014 interview with Cardinals Yearbook, Torre said, “Gibson was tough to catch because he never threw the ball straight. Throwing hard is one thing, but having the ball move all over the place was something else. Gibby probably beat up your thumb more than anybody because he could sail it, cut it, sink it … He could do a lot of stuff, but everything was power, power, power.”

Another Cardinals catcher, Tim McCarver, said of Gibson in the book “Few and Chosen,” “I always felt he could throw any pitch at any time to a right-handed hitter with William Tell accuracy … He could throw the ball within two baseball widths of the outside corner, with movement and at 95 mph. I never caught anybody else like that”

Hit and run

Gibson made the Dodgers hurt for intentionally walking Steve Huntz, batting .083, to load the bases with two outs in the fourth. Gibson followed by drilling a two-run single, extending the Cardinals’ lead to 3-0. In the seventh, Gibson scored on Julian Javier’s two-run single against Alan Foster.

With the Cardinals ahead, 6-2, in the eighth, Gibson worked a one-out walk from former teammate Pete Mikkelsen and swiped second. It was his second stolen base of the season and one of five steals for Gibson in 1969. He had 13 stolen bases in his Cardinals career. Boxscore

Dave Pallone was a minor-league umpire who caused a major ruckus when he ejected three prominent Cardinals for arguing one call.

On May 9, 1979, Pallone, substituting for major-league umpires who were on strike, tossed manager Ken Boyer, first baseman Keith Hernandez and catcher Ted Simmons in the ninth inning of a game at Houston’s Astrodome.

Pallone also ordered all of the players on the Cardinals’ bench to go inside the clubhouse and stay there until needed.

Pallone’s antics were part of a wild game in which the Astros prevailed over the Cardinals, 5-4, in 16 innings.

Questionable call

When big-league umpires went on strike in March 1979, the American League and National League brought in retired and amateur umpires and also hired eight replacement umpires, including Pallone, from the minor leagues.

Pallone was the second-base umpire in the Cardinals-Astros game.

In the ninth inning, with the score tied at 4-4, the Astros had Jimmy Sexton on first base with none out and Terry Puhl at the plate against Will McEnaney, the former Reds reliever who was making his first appearance with the Cardinals.

Puhl, looking to advance Sexton to second, bunted. McEnaney fielded the ball and threw to shortstop Garry Templeton, who was covering second. McEnaney’s throw was wide of the bag and Templeton had to reach to catch it.

Templeton said he kept his foot on the bag long enough to record the out, but Pallone disagreed and ruled Sexton safe at second.

“Bad call,” Templeton said to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I couldn’t stand there all day.”

Law and order

Pallone’s call prompted multiple Cardinals to rush toward him to protest.

Hernandez arrived first. “When I ran up to him,” Hernandez said, “I couldn’t slow down. I bumped him inadvertently.”

Pallone said to Hernandez, “Don’t you bump me,” and ejected him.

When Simmons and Boyer joined the argument, Simmons called Pallone a scab for working in place of the strikers.

“That’s what he is, isn’t he?” Simmons said.

Pallone objected and ejected Simmons.

After Boyer voiced his views in language he admitted “you couldn’t print,” he was tossed, too.

When angry Cardinals flung towels, a baseball and a jacket from the dugout onto the field, Pallone ordered all the players on the bench to go into the clubhouse, though he didn’t eject them.

“Any time you throw equipment onto the field, you can’t let them sit on the bench,” Pallone told the Post-Dispatch.

Said Boyer: “I doubt very seriously if that guy knew what he was doing.”

Missed opportunities

After order was restored, the Astros had Sexton on second, Puhl on first and none out, but McEnaney worked out of the jam. Craig Reynolds grounded into a force, and after Jeffrey Leonard walked, loading the bases, ex-Cardinal Jose Cruz bounced into a double play.

Entering extra innings, Cardinals coach Red Schoendienst instructed the bench players to return to the dugout and Pallone made no attempt to send them back.

“You just can’t stop the game every time and ask them to leave,” Pallone said.

Joaquin Andujar, the future Cardinals ace, worked two innings in relief for the Astros and escaped a tight spot in the 11th. With one out and George Hendrick on third, Ken Reitz grounded to Reynolds at short and Hendrick was thrown out at home. “You’ve got to take a chance with one out,” third-base coach Jack Krol said.

The Cardinals, though, weren’t done. Lou Brock singled and Bernie Carbo walked, loading the bases, before Andujar struck out Templeton.

In the 14th, the Astros loaded the bases with none out, but Tom Bruno kept them from scoring. After Bob Watson flied out to shallow left, Julio Gonzalez was supposed to try a suicide squeeze, but he missed the sign, took the pitch and Leonard, running from third to home, was tagged out. The inning ended on Gonzalez’s fly out to right.

Bruno’s luck ran out in the 16th when Watson looped a soft liner just beyond second baseman Ken Oberkfell, scoring Leonard from third with the winning run. Boxscore

Controversial career

A few days later, after the big-league umpires ended their strike, the American League and National League formally hired the eight replacement umpires and allowed them to stay.

Pallone was treated as an outcast by the union umpires, but he remained in the National League from 1979 to 1988, and worked the 1987 League Championship Series in which the Cardinals beat the Giants despite four home runs by Leonard.

On April 30, 1988, Pallone and Reds manager Pete Rose got into an argument during a game in Cincinnati. Rose thought Pallone poked him and he shoved the umpire in retaliation. Rose was ejected and Pallone was removed from the game for his protection when fans pelted the field with debris. Video.

Rose was suspended for 30 days and fined for his actions.

Five months later, Pallone was forced to resign for what was termed unprofessional behavior. He briefly was linked to a police investigation of a male sex ring in upstate New York, but charges never were filed against him.

Pallone wrote a book, “Behind the Mask: My Double Life in Baseball,” about his umpire career and his life as a gay man, and said he had sexual relationships with players.