Bob Gibson: St. Louis' Untouchable Pitcher

If you want to look knowledgeable at baseball trivia, ask someone who is the only Harlem Globetrotter in the baseball Hall of Fame. The answer is Pack Robert "Bob" Gibson, the greatest pitcher in St. Louis Cardinals' history. Bob Gibson combined incredible athletic ability with a fierce will to win to become the most feared pitcher of his day and perhaps all time. Bob Gibson was the living personification of grit and determination, and his 1968 season is the one that all pitchers are today measured by.

Bob was born on November 9th, 1935, in Omaha, Nebraska. His father had died before he was even born, and Victoria Gibson, his mother, had to work in a laundry to provide for her seven children. Bob Gibson suffered from a multitude of medical problems as a child. He persevered through bouts of rickets, pneumonia, asthma, hay fever and also was diagnosed with a heart murmur. But despite all the maladies, Gibson became a wonderful athlete, starring in baseball, basketball and track in his Omaha high school. Upon graduation, he happily accepted a basketball scholarship from Creighton University, right there in Omaha. Besides basketball, he also was on the school's baseball team, and when the Cardinals scouted him they offered him a $4,000 bonus to sign with them in 1957.