RIP Bob Gibson

[Bob Gibson] won both the National League's Most Valuable Player Award and the Cy Young Award, as the league's best pitcher, in 1968, when he won 22 games, struck out 268 batters, pitched 13 shutouts and posted an earned run average of 1.12, still the lowest since the advent of the lively ball in 1920 and the fourth-lowest in major league history.  The next year, even though Major League Baseball lowered the pitchers' mounds to give batters a break, Gibson won 20 games and struck out 269.

He won at least 20 games five times and struck out 3,117 batters.  He threw 56 career shutouts and captured a second Cy Young Award in 1970.  He was an eight-time All-Star, won a Gold Glove award for fielding nine times and pitched a no-hitter against the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1971.

Pitching for three pennant-winning Cardinal teams, Gibson won seven World Series games in a row, losing only in his first and last Series starts.  [H]e holds the records for most strikeouts in a World Series game, 17, and in a single World Series, 35, both against the Detroit Tigers in 1968.

He was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981, his first year of eligibility.

-- New York Times recap of the career of St Louis Cardinals pitching legend Bob Gibson (9 November 1935 - 2 October 2020), on the occasion of his passing