I Saw Bob Gibson Pitch

As a child, going downtown to the stadium with my grandparents meant one thing — stuffing ourselves silly with junk food! And oh, they had such delicious fare: hotdogs, cotton candy, popcorn, ice cream, Cracker Jacks, giant pretzels, and so many exotic things! Regardless of the event, whether it be a ball game or circus or whatever, getting dressed up in stuffy 60’s dress clothes was worth it considering the spoiling we were about to experience.

It was the early 70’s. I was about five or six years old and my brother was a toddler. Busch Stadium and the Gateway Arch were recent additions to the groovy, revitalized St. Louis riverfront.

On this particular night, we were going to a ballgame in a party suite. My grandfather was the vice-president of a construction company, and his boss was a wealthy, well-connected big wheel who did things in style. My parents were going along, which would somewhat damper the Dionysian revelry we were counting on, but nevertheless, the evening still had promise.

We arrived at the stadium. Our small crew made its way through the beer and urine fragrances of the lower level ramps to find an elevator, where we we taken upwards by a subservient colored gentleman in a bright red blazer.

We found ourselves in what amounted to a spacious restaurant with a fancy bar situated in the middle. It was a palatial monument of glass, brass, and mirrors manned by fancy-clad men and women in maroon, black, and white uniforms. TV’s were all over the place, with the familiar play-by-play of Jack Buck being piped in. He was the voice of the Cardinals . . . and the sound of beer, baseball, and Sundays.

While the adults were busy drinking, socializing, and watching the game — in that order — my grandmother proceeded to buy us anything and everything we wanted. On occasion, my mother would come over and scold us for our gluttony and pleaded with my grandmother to desist. Any modicum of self-control was short-lived, however. We ate, drank, and ran through the maze of tightly packed polyester legs with reckless abandon. It was like a Kindergarten orgy.

At one point, once the sugar coma set in, I wondered outside to the seats, high above the third-base line, where I found my grandfather and other gentleman cheering wildly.

Everybody was focused on the pile of dirt in the middle of the Astroturf diamond, where a tall black man in white and red was throwing so hard he fell off the mound with every pitch. He hurled the ball past batters as the umpire (or was it empire? or vampire, rather?) called balls and strikes and vociferously rung up hitters with dramatic flair. The crowd went crazy!

My grandfather, who was cheering with the others, bent down and shouted in my ear, “That’s Bob Gibson down there! You can always say you saw Bob Gibson pitch!”

And so I do.

Rest in Peace, Bob Gibson #45