How did Bob Gibson’s career end?

On this date in 1975, according to the Baseball-Reference.com Bullpen entry for today:

On the final pitch of his Hall of Fame career, Cardinals great Bob Gibson gives up a grand slam to Pete LaCock. It will be LaCock’s only bases-loaded homer of his career.

I have heard this fact many times–it’s a sad thing.

But a fellow on Twitter named Al Yellon (@bleedcubbieblue) pointed out to me that this “fact” is not a “fact” at all.

Take a look at the box score for the game.

In the 7th inning of the game, here’s how it went:

Bob Gibson replaces Larry Lintz (PR) pitching and batting 9th
Fly ball
Walk
Single
Walk
Ground out
Wild pitch
Intentional walk
Home run (by Pete LaCock)
Ground out
(end of inning)

Mike Wallace replaced Bob Gibson to start the top of the 8th.

So, the grand slam clearly did not come on the last pitch of Gibson’s career, since he recorded a ground out following the home run.

What gives? Why does this story about Gibson persist when it is so obviously false?

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Richard Chester

12 years ago

The Charlton Chronology mentions that Gibson himself stated (incorrectly) in his autobiography that the pitch to LaCock was his last pitch in the majors.

Brooklyn Mick

12 years ago

I wonder if there was a concerted effort by “some” members of the media to spin the tale of LaCock’s grand slam coming off the final pitch of Gibson’s career. As a story, it captures the essence of Gibby’s final days in uniform, and by extension, the demise of many star athletes who hung on just a bit too long. Also, Pete LaCock’s father, Ralph Pierre LaCock (known as Hollywood Squares host Peter Marshall) may have used some of his influence to help etch his son’s name into baseball lore. Once a story gets told enough times, people tend to… Read more »

MikeD

12 years ago

Reply to Brooklyn Mick

No, sir. This is baseball, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

Beyond my very slight edit above to Maxwell Scott’s line from the Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, I can think of no other sport that loves to print the legend more than baseball.

Phil

12 years ago

The sadder thing to me (checking the boxscore) is to think of Bob Gibson pitching middle relief.

Wine Curmudgeon

12 years ago

All mentions of Pete LaCock require noting that he is the son of Peter Marshall of Hollywood Squares fame.

Brooklyn Mick

12 years ago

Reply to Wine Curmudgeon

Hello Wine C. Look up to comment #2. I even gave a “theory” on the subject.

Max

12 years ago

Reply to Wine Curmudgeon

And of course, a few random childish giggles.

MikeD

12 years ago

Reply to Max

…with your best Beavis and Butthead snicker. He said LaCock.

MikeD

12 years ago

Reply to Wine Curmudgeon

You’re right, but I don’t think it was mentioned because LaCock the baseball player was the son of Peter Marshall. It was always mentioned because that’s the first time anyone had heard that host Peter Marshall’s real name was Peter LaCock.

Max

12 years ago

I like to think it is a case of trying to make something that is dramatic and tragic even more dramatic and tragic. I think it is pretty sad that in his last inning in the majors, Gibson gave up a grand slam to a such a lowly scrub as LaCock (even that name has dramatic effect; it wouldn’t be as effective if it was “Jones”). Whether it was a baseball writer or Gibson himself, doing it on the last pitch (rather than just his last inning) is taking it that one step further that the story really doesn’t need.

Brooklyn Mick

12 years ago

Reply to Max

Why Max? What’s wrong with questioning how or why the notion got started? It’s clear that the point of this topic is:

“What gives? Why does this story about Gibson persist when it is so obviously false?”

12 years ago

Reply to Brooklyn Mick

I think you may have misinterpreted what Max said. I believe he was theorising that the story was changed (intentionally or not) because the new ending makes it sound even more dramatic. I happen to agree with him; all stories become more hyperbolic the more they are told. I don’t see him questioning the point of this thread.

Max

12 years ago

Reply to RJ

Precisely. People like “I cannot tell a lie…” (George Washington and the cherry tree), “Play it again, Sam” (Casablanca), “The British are coming!” (Paul Revere’s ride) and other good stories, regardless of whether they are true. A little fibbing goes a long way to making something more dramatic. And things just perpetuate from there. It doesn’t matter that there was no cherry tree, that he says “You played it for her, you can play it for me, now play it!” or that it is unlikely Paul Revere yelled much more than “to arms! to arms! since, really, they were all… Read more »

Brooklyn Mick

12 years ago

Reply to Max

Which is why I said: “As a story, it captures the essence of Gibby’s final days in uniform, and by extension, the demise of many star athletes who hung on just a bit too long.”

Perhaps I should have italicized the word “story” to emphasize my point. Or maybe I should have peppered my post with winks, smiley faces, and lol’s.

12 years ago

Reply to Max

@24 I think we’re all basically agreeing with each other to be honest.

Brooklyn Mick

12 years ago

I don’t know if Joe Posnanski is the sole culprit of this ignominious slight to Gibby, but in his 2009 book about the 1975 Reds titled “The Machine: A Hot Team, a Legendary Season, and a Heart-stopping World Series: The Story of the 1975 Cincinnati Reds” he writes: “Five days later, Gibson pitched in his final game, against the Chicago Cubs. He had nothing. He walked a man, allowed a single, walked another, threw a wild pitch, and intentionally walked a man. And finally, he grooved a fastball to Pete LaCock, a twenty-three-year old first baseman who was the son… Read more »

bstar

12 years ago

Reply to Brooklyn Mick

I have a lot of respect for Joe Poz, Mick. I seriously doubt he would ever intentionally put something false into one of his books. I’d say he was just another victim of assuming that story was indeed true. I assume you were simply just using an excerpt from his book as an example of the false information.

Brooklyn Mick

12 years ago

Reply to bstar

bstar, I was joking when I said: “I don’t know if Joe Posnanski is the sole culprit of this ignominious slight to Gibby.”

I was trying to illustrate one example of how the “myth” continues top be perpetuated 30+ years from the day of Gibson’s final game.

danny

12 years ago

I know a lot of followers to this sight will be up in arms about this comment, but if I had one game to win, Gibson would be my starter!

Brooklyn Mick

12 years ago

Reply to danny

Nothing up in arms about that danny. How can one argue against it? As great as Koufax and Seaver were, nobody comes close to Gibby in a 1-game situation. He was guts and glory!

Luis Gomez

12 years ago

Reply to danny

In the late 90’s, when they were doing the interviews for the All century Team video documentary, they asked Gibson, who will he pick to be the Starter on the All Century Team, and he said “I´ll pick me!”. So, Gibson himself agrees with you.

Evil Squirrel

12 years ago

Pete LaCock, meet Dann Howitt….

Nash Bruce

12 years ago

Reply to Evil Squirrel

I think that Nolan had nothing left in that arm after he gave noogies to Ventura a couple months beforehand……

oneblankspace

12 years ago

Reply to Nash Bruce

Ryan was not suspended for that because at that time, the League President could not discipline players not thrown out of the game by the umpires.

topper009

12 years ago

How did LaCock not get mentioned in those Valentine’s Day lists with Pete Rose, Cupid Childs, Bobby V etc?

Steven

12 years ago

I saw Gibson pitch on Opening Night in 1975. He pitched like Bob Gibson-for seven innings-striking out a lot of Expos. In 1973, he suffered a broken leg for the third time in his career, and started to decline in 1974. I was also at the game in 1967, when Clemente injured him with a line drive, and he pitched to two more batters(Stargell and Mazeroski,I think), before collapsing on the mound. Loved watching him pitch until the summer of ’75, when he joined the ranks of Joe Louis, Willie Mays and John Unitas at the end of the line,… Read more »

Mike L

12 years ago

If you look at the box score (and with proper HHS training) you can clearly see the issue. It was the intentional walk to Morales.

Lawrence Azrin

12 years ago

#24/ Brooklyn Mick,

I have to disagree very strongly with this concept that a once-great player can “hang on too long”. It’s THEIR livelihood, how they’ve made a living their entire adult lives; who are WE, to tell THEM when to quit, just because playing too long might tarnish our reputation of them?

As long as an MLB team is willing to play them, I don’t see why they shouldn’t continue to play as long as they wish to.

Brooklyn Mick

12 years ago

Reply to Lawrence Azrin

Lawrence, I’m not saying that WE have a right to tell anyone when it’s time to quit, but WE, as fans, have every right to discuss their decision(s). As a fan I have the right to state that “in my opinion” Ali, Namath, Mays, Unitas, and others, stuck around too long.

Lawrence Azrin

12 years ago

Reply to Brooklyn Mick

OK, fine, and “in my opinion”, any professional athlete can stick around as long as they want, as long as there is someone willing to pay them to perform.

Not everyone can end their career the way that John Elway did.

tag

12 years ago

Reply to Lawrence Azrin

Lawrence, I agree with you wholeheartedly. I mean, not only is the particular sport in question their livelihood, it’s often their lives. They’ve frequently been playing it since they were toddlers, and their whole identity is often wrapped up in it. If they want to cling to that, for good and ill, who am I to blame them? They owe our mental image of them in their prime nothing. Plus, there are plenty of novelists, filmmakers, etc. who wrote one too many books / directed one too many films and who, it could be said, also should have hung up… Read more »

Brent

12 years ago

Reply to tag

It happens in other walks of life too. As a lawyer, I have been in the courtroom with esteemed lawyers who have been practicing for 50+ years and really don’t have their fastball anymore. It is pretty sad actually, especially when you can remember them as they once were. You are lucky if you never have had treatment by a doctor that should have “hung up his spikes” a few years ago (I wasn’t so lucky when I came to the ER needing an emergency appendectomy. My 80 year old general surgeon didn’t even perform laparoscopic appendectomies, so it was… Read more »

MikeD

12 years ago

Reply to Lawrence Azrin

I’m with you on this. Most athletes don’t walk away from the game as Ted Williams did, and certainly not like Sandy Koufax. Chipper Jones gets to walk out on a high note. Mike Mussina did a couple years back. Yet most players hang on to the end, and as a fan of the game I enjoy watching both endings. Those who walk out on a high note, and those who try to squeeze every last drop out of their skills. I recently saw some reporter refer to the sad ending of Rickey Henderson, who played for a few seasons… Read more »

Author

Andy

12 years ago

Reply to MikeD

We discussed this on another thread, but Manny Ramirez is another example. He hit so well for the Red Sox–I couldn’t ever imagine how it would end. But it did, pretty quickly over a 2-year period. His behavior finally outweighed his performance.

Lawrence Azrin

12 years ago

Reply to MikeD

MikeD,

The irony is that sportwriters are constantly harping on how most major league athletes never play “for the love of the game”. Yet this is EXACTLY what Henderson was doing in independent ball, making a pittance in the minors after his MLB career ended, and for his efforts he got endlessly mocked by the writers.

MikeD

12 years ago

Reply to MikeD

Lawrence, as a kid I remember reading articles about how Willie Mays embarrassed himself in his final year with the Mets. That was a touch before I started watching the game, but I never understood why they thought he was embarrassing himself. Fine, he wasn’t what he once was and his time had come to retire, but embarrssing himself?

As I grew older, I realized it was almost always some reporter saying the player (in that case Mays) should retire. It seems they don’t quite understand the competitive fire that fuels these guys.

no statistician but

12 years ago

Reply to MikeD

I always felt that, as a player, Ryne Sandberg was somewhat overrated, good but not great except for a couple of years. But how many Hall-of-Famers in our time have taken on the roll of minor league manager, plugging away in Peoria, Des Moines, and Lehigh City, suffering the innumerable frustrations attendant on that position, when his reputation is secure and the money can’t be commensurate to the job.

It’s another, more productive way, I think, for a storied ballplayer to show his devotion to the game.

Editor

Doug

12 years ago

Another example is the scene in the movie “The Lou Gehrig Story” from Gehrig’s final 1939 season. Gehrig hits a feeble grounder to the left side that somehow finds a hole between short and third. No sooner does Gehrig arrive at first than he’s back in the dugout as the next batter makes the final out of the inning. As Gehrig comes into the dugout, instead of being ribbed by his teammates for getting a cheap hit, he’s getting exaggerated compliments and encouragement that now he’s on his way out of his season-long slump. It’s at that point that Gehrig… Read more »

Christopher

12 years ago

In Vol. 5, no. 2 of “Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game” (Fall 2011), there is an article studying the creation of the legend of Germany Schaefer’s Called Home Run. (Not to be confused with the legend of Schaefer stealing first base.) The article takes a careful approach to determine when elements were added to the story (such as Schaefer’s antics running the base path after the home run). In this case, with Gibson, @9 mentions a 2009 book by Joe Posnanski that gives the “final pitch” story, but @1 suggests that Gibson’s autobiography also gives the same… Read more »

Bill Chuck

12 years ago

From my book, “Walkoffs, Last Licks, and Final Outs” Bob Gibson It would be fair to say that whether you are rich or poor, black or white, life consists of three stages – you’re born, you live a life, you die. The same is true for a baseball player’s major-league career. You break in, you play your career, and then you retire or are released. It doesn’t matter whether you are a scrub or a member of the Hall of Fame, that’s the way it goes. Sooner or later, every game ends, every stadium will close, every streak will end,… Read more »

Editor

birtelcom

12 years ago

Reply to Bill Chuck

Great stuff, Bill — captures the spirit of the story, while also getting the play-by-play facts right. Note that in the book “Take Me Out To the Cubs Game”, by John Skipper (McFarland and Co., 2000), Pete LaCock himself is quoted (p. 171): “I hit the last pitch Bob Gibson ever threw in his major league career. It was a grand-slam home run…..” So the memories of both the pitcher and the hitter in that at-bat give drama priority over facts, in exactly the same way. It’s human nature. Splendid blog post, BTW, Andy — a nice bit of baseball… Read more »

Brent

12 years ago

Reply to birtelcom

Plus maybe Bob Gibson retired Don Kessinger so many times over the course of his career he naturally just forgot this one last time.

Judy Carpenter

6 years ago

Reply to birtelcom

We were driving cross country and stopped in St Louis to see them play the Cubs. I remember Gibson giving up a Grand Slam to Pete LaCock. It was said later that Bob said “If I gave up a slam to someone like LaCock, then it is time for me to retire. “. Whether that is true or not, I don’t know. That was the first time I had ever heard of Pete LaCock.