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Stan Hochman: Baseball book a fall classic
BOB GIBSON and Reggie Jackson collaborating on a book? Jackson, who never met a reporter's notebook he didn't try to fill? And Gibson, who treated writers like they had swine flu, back before we'd ever heard of swine flu.
Introvert, extrovert. Scowling pitcher and preening slugger. Heartless headhunter and home run strutter. So different, yet so much alike when the leaves turned golden and baseball staged what Tommy Lasorda insisted on calling The Fall Classic.
The book is "Sixty Feet, Six Inches," and it's a dialogue between two superstars who seemed miles apart when they played.
When the Phillies gagged in '64, maybe they were choking on the Cardinals' fumes? Bob Gibson got beat on the final Friday of the season, 1-0. Then he pitched four innings in relief on that final Sunday, when St. Louis clinched the pennant.
That made 29 innings in 11 days. Which might explain why the Yankees beat him in Game 2 of that memorable World Series. Came back to win Game 5. Started on 2 days' rest in Game 7, went the full nine innings, even though Clete Boyer and Phil Linz homered. Phil Linz!
And afterwards, away from a clubhouse ankle deep in cheap champagne, manager Johnny Keane was asked why he stuck with Gibson. "I had a commitment to his heart," Keane said.
Years later, Reggie Jackson hit three home runs in Game 6 of the 1977 World Series against the Dodgers. Three pitches, three homers. Which is when he became Mr. October. People might forget that Jackson hit a first pitch homer his last at-bat in the previous game. Don't worry, Jackson will remind them.
Jackson lived for those moments when the shadows grew longer and the nation was watching. "That was a good scenario for me," Jackson says in the book. "I liked that. I needed that. I called those 'Reggie Moments.' "
Gibson counters. "For me the World Series was all on the field, and in the dugout with my teammates. It was us against them, for everything. It was the height of competition. That's what brought out the best in me."
The timing is sweet. Someone has a chance to be Mr. November, thanks to baseball's quixotic scheduling. Alex Rodriguez? Ryan Howard? The barrel-chested CC Sabathia? The sinewy Cliff Lee?
"I don't know that I ever pitched a bad game in the postseason," Gibson writes, candor trumping humility. "The atmosphere, no doubt, had something to do with it . . . the excitement surrounding the whole thing served to help me forget how tired and worn out and beat up I might be."
Jackson, who once used the phrase "the magnitude of me," brags that "it was innate for me to be a hundred percent zoned in and primed for the World Series."
Sometimes you have to sift through the gravel to find the nuggets in the book, but it's worth the digging. I'd love to see Cole Hamels read page 174. "A pitcher," Jackson growls, "can really tick a guy off by turning around and staring at him for making an error."
Gibson takes it a step further. "Errors are going to happen, just like hanging sliders are going to happen. If your fielders turned on you every time you made a mistake you'd have a mess on your hands. So you can't throw any tantrums out there when they make one . . . as long as it's physical."
There are many references to Dick Allen in the book, Gibson raving about him as a teammate, Jackson praising him as a mentor. "Allen was a special mix of talent, brains and style," Jackson says. "He could hit a ball so incredibly hard," Gibson adds, "It was easy to look at Dick as just a raw natural talent at the plate, and a lot of people did. But I can assure you that the man was a thinker up there."
Both Hall of Famers get the space to explain reputations, Gibson as a headhunter, Jackson as a spotlight-seeker. Gibson detested hitters leaning out over the plate to get at his trademark outside pitches. So he'd throw one truly inside that might leave a purple bruise on the guy's ribs. "The hitter," Gibson lectures, "was hitting himself."
"So I was confident," Jackson writes. "Cocky if you must. I was likened to Muhammad Ali in that respect. Ali was cocky because he knew how good he was, and he knew that knowing it only made him better . . . Cockiness is just confidence worn on the outside. And winking about it."
Ali said it better when he yipped, "It ain't bragging if you do it." Gibson and Jackson did it, in the harsh spotlight of October baseball.
I once reviewed a thin baseball-for-women book by Mrs. Gibson. Said it was duller than a Phillies-Colt .45s twi-nighter. That's how long ago it was. Houston's team was called the Colt .45s and teams played twi-nighters.
Gibson didn't talk to me for 18 years until Joe Torre brokered a truce. Gibson was wrong, loud wrong, but that's a story for another day, another month.
This is a good book, an October book.
Send e-mail to stanrhoch@comcast.net
