What happened to Bob Gibson on a frigid night at Connie Mack Stadium was weird even by Philadelphia standards. Almost as weird as Santa Claus being booed and pelted with snowballs, or a team mascot getting attacked by an opposing manager.
Sixty years ago, on April 16, 1962, Gibson gave away a six-run Cardinals lead in the first and didn’t last the inning against the Phillies.
For a pitcher who usually excelled at protecting leads and dominated the Phillies, the failure by Gibson defied the odds and illustrated just how difficult and unpredictable the game could be, even for those at the top of the profession.
Frozen tundra
After winning their first three games of the 1962 season, the Cardinals were in Philadelphia to play the Phillies on a Monday night. According to the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, the temperature at game time was “a bone-chilling cold” 32 degrees.
“The ball was slick and cold, just like a piece of ice,” Cardinals manager Johnny Keane told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
The starting pitchers were Gibson, 26, and Cal McLish, 36, whose full name was Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar Tuskahoma McLish.
Both were making their first appearances of the season. Against the Phillies in 1961, Gibson was 3-0 with an 0.67 ERA, allowing two earned runs in 27 innings. An Oklahoma native who followed the Cardinals as a youth, McLish was making his Phillies debut after being acquired from the White Sox a month earlier. (In 1982, McLish was the pitching coach for the Brewers, who opposed the Cardinals in the World Series.)
An audience of 3,895 settled in to see the show.
Out of control
Struggling to get pitches over the plate, McLish “was in the showers before you could pronounce his whole name,” Neal Russo of the Post-Dispatch observed.
McLish walked the first two batters, Don Landrum and Julian Javier. Bill White doubled, scoring Landrum and moving Javier to third. After Stan Musial was walked intentionally, loading the bases, Ken Boyer walked unintentionally, scoring Javier.
Gene Oliver made the first out, popping up to third. Doug Clemens, who grew up in Leesport, about 70 miles northwest of Philadelphia, cleared the bases with a double, making the score 5-0.
Phillies manager Gene Mauch replaced McLish with Dallas Green. “It wasn’t that bad pitching out there,” McLish said to the Post-Dispatch, “but I kept fighting myself and got in a rut.”
Green drilled Julio Gotay with a fastball. “It was a knockdown pitch,” Keane told the Post-Dispatch.
The next batter, Gibson, wasn’t intimidated. He rapped a grounder into the hole on the left side for an infield single, and, when shortstop Ruben Amaro made a wild throw after gloving the ball, Clemens scored, giving the Cardinals a 6-0 lead.
Not worth the wait
“Thirty minutes elapsed before Dallas Green got the side out, and, by that time, Gibson was as stiff as a fungo bat,” Stan Hochman noted in the Philadelphia Daily News.
Keane told the Post-Dispatch, “Gibson was cooled off by the time he got to the mound. Maybe we missed the boat by not sending him to the bullpen while we were at bat so long.”
Like McLish did in the top half of the inning, Gibson walked the first two batters (Tony Taylor and Johnny Callison), but Tony Gonzalez struck out and Wes Covington flied out to center.
Then the next six Phillies batters reached base.
Billy Klaus singled, scoring Taylor. Frank Torre walked, loading the bases, and Clay Dalrymple followed with a two-run single, getting the Phillies within three at 6-3.
Amaro walked, reloading the bases, and Gibson was relieved by Ernie Broglio.
“I have no excuses,” Gibson said to the Post-Dispatch. “I was just wild. My ball was moving real good _ in fact, it was moving a little too much. I had good stuff.”
Keane said, “Gibson, with his fastball, usually knocks the bats out of their hands on a cold night like this one.”
Roy Sievers batted for Dallas Green and drew a walk from Broglio, scoring Torre from third. Tony Taylor followed with a two-run single, tying the score at 6-6.
With Broglio shutting out the Phillies over the last eight innings, the Cardinals rallied for four runs against Don Ferrarese and two versus Jack Baldschun, winning 12-6. Boxscore
(Two weeks later, Ferrarese was traded to the Cardinals for Bobby Locke.)
Back on track
In his book “Stranger to the Game,” Gibson recalled, “After that, our pitching coach, Howie Pollet, made me throw more pitches and simulate game conditions in the bullpen, which seemed to help.”
Two weeks later, Gibson pitched a two-hitter to beat the Houston Colt .45s. Boxscore
Gibson was 15-13, including 3-1 versus the Phillies, in 1962 before he broke his right leg during batting practice before a September game against the Dodgers.
For his career, Gibson was 30-12 with a 2.59 ERA versus the Phillies. He had more career wins against the Phillies than he did versus any other club.
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