No Friends in the Batter's Box

Here is the thing people get wrong about Bob Gibson. The glare was not a performance he saved for the other dugout.

He did not talk to opposing hitters. Not in a rivalry series, not at All-Star Games, not to guys he had known for a decade. He thought being friendly with a hitter was actively bad for winning, and he said so plainly. Joe Torre, who was his teammate for six years and later hired him as a coach, described him on the mound as going well past unfriendly.

Then came 1968. A 1.12 ERA, the lowest by any pitcher since the deadball era. Thirteen shutouts. Twenty-eight complete games. Seventeen strikeouts in Game One of the World Series, still the record. Baseball responded by lowering the mound from fifteen inches to ten and shrinking the strike zone.

They rewrote the rulebook because of what he was doing to hitters. His own teammates, apparently, did not need the rule change explained to them.