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Bob Gibson Celebrates Championship

Oct. 16, 1964 - In a corner of the tumultuous Cardinal dressing room yesterday stood Bob Gibson (pictured with Dick Groat), sipping from a bottle of champagne — grinning and perspiring.

“It’s nice to know I set a World Series strikeout record,” he said in response to a reporter’s question, “but I’d rather have the money.”

Gibson had fanned nine Yankees and had pitched the Cardinals to baseball’s championship, 7-5. His strikeout record for the Series was 31.

“I’ll tell you this,” the tall hurler said, “I thought my stuff was faster at the end than it was at the start. The pitches the Yanks hit for homers in the ninth inning were good fastballs — right over the plate.”

With the Cards leading, 7-3, and one out in the ninth, Clete Boyer hammered a fastball into the leftfield stands. Gibson struck out pinch hitter Johnny Blanchard, but another light-hitting Yankee, Phil Linz, smashed another fastball to left for the inning’s second homer.

“We had a big lead then,” Gibson explained. “At times like that, you go with your best — which in my case is the fastball. You throw it hard and over the plate, daring them to swing on it.

“After all, how many times are these guys going to lean back and hit the ball into the stands like they did in the ninth?”

Gibson said Mickey Mantle’s three-run homer, an opposite field blast to left in the sixth, bothered him.

“He hit a fastball away from the plate and rode it to left,” Gibson said. “That man has power. But we still had a 6-3 lead, and it didn’t worry me too much, although I was a little concerned.”

“Kenny Boyer sort of made up for his brother’s homer,” Gibson grinned. “He cracked it pretty good. And man, didn’t little Lou Brock hammer that ball?”

Brock belted a line drive homer to the pavilion roof in right center, about 400 feet away, starting the three-run Cardinal fifth.

“You know,” said Gibson, “the one thing I’ve got on my mind now is getting home to Omaha to see my two little girls. My wife is here, but I’ve probably been pretty tough on her lately. I think all this tension has made me a bit snappy.”

Gibson won the 10th annual Sport Magazine Corvette award as the Series’ outstanding player.



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