Bob Gibson, the dominating St. Louis Cardinals pitcher who won a record seven consecutive World Series starts and set a modern standard for excellence when he finished the 1968 season with a 1.12 ERA, died Friday. He was 84.
The Cardinals confirmed Gibson’s death shortly after a 4-0 loss to the San Diego Padres ended their season in the wild-card round of the National League playoffs. Gibson, who was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981, had long been ill with pancreatic cancer in his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska.
Gibson’s death came on the 52nd anniversary of perhaps his most overpowering performance, when he struck out 17 batters in Game 1 of the 1968 World Series against the Detroit Tigers, setting the record for strikeouts in a single game in the Fall Classic.
One of baseball’s most uncompromising competitors, the two-time Cy Young Award winner spent his entire 17-year career with St. Louis and was named the World Series MVP in their 1964 and ’67 championship seasons. The Cardinals came up just short in 1968, but Gibson was voted the NL MVP for the season and shut down opponents so well that baseball changed the rules for fear it would happen again.
Gibson died less than a month after the death of a longtime teammate, Hall of Fame outfielder Lou Brock. Another Hall of Fame pitcher from his era, Tom Seaver, died in late August.