RetroSimba

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.

While pitching to a Cardinals batter, Sandy Koufax was replaced by Ed Roebuck, who got the Dodgers out of a jam and went on to earn a win in an eight-inning relief effort.

Roebuck’s performance was one of several successes he experienced against the Cardinals in his 11 major-league seasons. Roebuck had a 9-1 career record versus St. Louis.

The right-handed relief pitcher won nine consecutive decisions against the Cardinals before he lost to them.

Rescue work

Roebuck signed with the Dodgers as an amateur free agent in 1949 and made his major-league debut with them in 1955. Roebuck’s first win versus the Cardinals came in his first career appearance against them on May 5, 1955. Boxscore

A sinkerball specialist, Roebuck earned five wins and 12 saves for the 1955 Dodgers, who won Brooklyn’s only World Series championship that year.

In 1956, both Koufax, 20, and Roebuck, 25, were in their second major-league season with the Dodgers.

On Aug. 5, 1956, Koufax brought a 2-3 record and 4.56 ERA into his start against the Cardinals in the second game of a doubleheader at Ebbets Field. After Koufax held the Cardinals scoreless in the top of the first, Duke Snider hit a three-run home run in the bottom half of the inning.

In the second, the first three Cardinals batters reached base against Koufax on singles by Rip Repulski and Wally Moon and a walk to Walker Cooper. After Koufax threw two pitches outside the strike zone to the next batter, Bobby Del Greco, manager Walter Alston yanked the erratic left-hander and brought in Roebuck.

Cardinals manager Fred Hutchinson countered by replacing Del Greco, a right-handed batter, with Charlie Peete, who batted left-handed. With the bases loaded and none out, Roebuck got Peete to ground into a double play, with Repulski scoring from third, and struck out pitcher Larry Jackson, ending the threat.

Roebuck held the Cardinals scoreless for the next four innings, surrendered a two-run home run to Rocky Nelson in the seventh, and shut out the Cardinals the rest of the way in a 5-3 Dodgers victory. Boxscore

Pennant pressure

Roebuck had his best seasons with the Dodgers in 1957 (8-2, eight saves), 1960 (8-3, eight saves) and 1962 (10-2, nine saves). On July 30, 1963, Roebuck was traded by the Dodgers to the Senators for infielder Marv Breeding. Nine months later, on April 21, 1964, the Senators sold Roebuck’s contract to the Phillies.

Joining a bullpen featuring closer Jack Baldschun, Roebuck contributed to the Phillies’ rise to the top of the National League standings in 1964. The first-place Phillies were 6.5 games ahead of their nearest pursuers, the Cardinals and Reds, with 12 to play, but went into a tailspin, enabling St. Louis to clinch the pennant on the season’s final day.

Roebuck pitched well even while the Phillies faltered. He had a 1.04 ERA in 10 September appearances and earned a win versus the Reds in his lone October game. Roebuck finished 5-3 with 12 saves and a 2.21 ERA in 60 appearances for the 1964 Phillies and was 1-0 with a save and 2.03 ERA in nine games versus St. Louis.

Roebuck was 9-1 with 10 saves in 61 career games pitched against the Cardinals. He made more appearances versus St. Louis than he did against any other team.

Beat the streak

On May 19, 1965, with the Phillies ahead, 6-5, the Cardinals scored twice in the bottom of the ninth, beating Roebuck for the only time. A headline in the Philadelphia Inquirer declared, “Cards Manage To Beat Roebuck After 10 Years.”

With one out, Curt Flood singled and advanced to third on Lou Brock’s single off the glove of second baseman Tony Taylor. After Brock swiped second, Mike Shannon, batting .107, laid off Roebuck’s low pitches and drew a walk, loading the bases.

“That’s why we haven’t been able to beat Roebuck _ we’ve been swinging at his bad pitches,” Cardinals manager Red Schoendienst said to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Cardinals pitching coach Joe Becker, who coached Roebuck with the Dodgers, said, “Roebuck would throw sinker, sinker, sinker and when he got ahead of the batter he’d put his pitches lower, lower and lower. He just wouldn’t give a guy a good ball to hit.”

Ken Boyer barely missed hitting a grand slam with a sacrifice fly to the center field wall, tying the score at 6-6, and Dick Groat’s groundball single to left drove in Brock from second with the winning run. Boxscore

“I look for the fastball all the time,” Groat told the Philadelphia Daily News. “That’s the only way I know how to hit.”

In a big-league career with the Dodgers (1955-58 and 1960-63), Senators (1963-64) and Phillies (1964-66), Roebuck was 52-31 with 62 saves.