Hero's Encore

"The worst thing about being in the limelight," says Pitcher Bob Gibson of the St. Louis Cardinals, "is trying to go somewhere and enjoy yourself for a little while without being bothered. Your steak gets cold and your drink gets flat, and you can't even go to the rest room without someone asking for an autograph." Moreover, he adds, "Ninetynine out of a hundred people I meet want to talk about only one thing, baseball, and that doesn't make for very interesting conversation. Just suppose, for example, that you were a garbage collector and every day about a hundred people stopped you and asked how much garbage you collected that day and how much you expected to collect the next."

Those are the things a man has to put up with when he is one of the best pitchers in baseball and earns $90,000 a year. If Bob Gibson talks tough, though, he pitches even tougher. At 32, he has been around the majors for nine years, winning 20 games in 1965 and 21 in 1966. He was headed for an other 20-victory season last year when a line drive broke his left leg and put him out of action for six weeks. Neither that injury, nor a chronic soreness in his right arm, prevented Gibson from playing the hero's role in last year's World Series against the Boston Red Sox. In an amazing show of strength and stamina, he started three games in nine days and won them all, giving up only three runs and 14 hits while striking out 26 Boston batters.

Eleven Straight. This year's encore is even more impressive. The soreness in Gibson's arm has disappeared ("I didn't do anything special about it," he says, "it just went away"), and his performance is one good reason why St. Louis, with a 12 1/2-game lead, has made a mockery of the National League pennant race. Other hurlers around the majors have won more games, of course: Detroit's Denny McLain already has 19 victories to his credit, San Francisco's Juan Marichal 18, and Cleveland's Luis Tiant 16. Gibson's record is 14-5, but the last time he lost was May 28. Since June 2, when he beat the New York Mets 6-3, he has pitched 90 innings and allowed just two runs--one of which scored on a wild pitch, the other on a base hit that was fair only by inches. Last week, Gibson blanked the Philadelphia Phillies, the only team he had not previously beaten this season, 5-0, for his eleventh straight victory and his eighth shutout of the year. His earned-run average at week's end was a phenomenal 0.96. Only one pitcher in baseball history (Ferdinand Schupp in 1916) has ever posted an E.R.A. that low for a season.

Ulcer Free. Gibson, says Cardinal Catcher Tim McCarver, "challenges the hitters more than any other pitcher. He just gets out there and says, 'Okay, baby, here comes the big one. What are you going to do about it?' " Unlike such artists as San Francisco's Marichal, who has 13 different pitches in his repertory, Gibson relies almost exclusively on a fastball (which has been clocked at more than 90 m.p.h.) and a slider. "Oh, I'll throw a curve every so often," he says, "and a changeup once a month." More often than not, he calls his own pitches. "You can't let catchers tell you what to throw," he says. "You try to throw a pitch you don't want to, and you'll throw a bad pitch 99% of the time."

Gibson's pride will not stand bad pitches. To reporters who suggest that the front-running Cards may be getting "complacent," Bob says: "That's a lot of bull. Remember, there's a certain selfishness involved in this game. It's our livelihood, and we're playing for ourselves as well as for the team." But for all this competitive spirit, and his concern for No. 1, Gibson will never be an ulcer case. "Are you worried?" a sportswriter asked him before the Philadelphia game. "No," replied Bob. "You must be worried," persisted the sportswriter. "Okay," shrugged Gibson, "I'm worried."

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