On a night that the St. Louis Cardinals were eliminated in the wild card round of the MLB playoffs, the organization learned Friday that former long time Cardinal and Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Gibson has passed away of pancreatic cancer at the age of 84.
Gibson pitched his entire career for St. Louis from 1959-1975 (17 seasons), leading them to a pair of World Series titles in 1964 and 1967. In that time he won the CY Young Award twice, a regular season MVP in 1968, and also a pair of World Series MVP Awards. Gibsons death comes on the 52nd Anniversary of maybe his greatest game ever pitched, a 17 strikeout performance in Game 1 of the 1968 World Series. He set club records which are still held for wins with 251, 255 complete games, 56 shutouts, 3,117 strikeouts, and 3,884 innings pitched. His best season was 1968 when he won the regular season MVP. That season the right hander went 22-9 with a 1.12 earned run average and struckout 268 batters in 304.2 innings pitched. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1981.
