“I threw well in spring training, but my shoulder has been stiff since then,” Gibson said. “I had to warm up for 20 minutes to get loose one night, so I thought I’d try polishing the car.”[1]

Had the Cubs known what was coming, they may have paid someone to come polish Gibson’s car for him.

Gibson, who had won 13, 15, and 18 games, respectively, in the preceding three seasons, started 1964 with a pair of complete-game victories, beating the Dodgers 6-2 and the Houston Astros 6-1. On May 9, he picked up his third win of the season, scattering eight hits and two walks in a 5-1 complete-game victory, but stumbled in his next outing, lasting just three innings as the Braves scored four runs on eight hits and three walks. Though the Cardinals – who scored five runs in first inning – went on to win 10-6, Gibson was determined to return to form.

With his shoulder suitably loosened, Gibson opened the game by striking out Cubs second baseman Jimmy Stewart. Right fielder Lou Brock, who would be traded to the Cardinals less than a month later, also went down on strikes. Billy Williams and Ron Santo each singled before Gibson ended the threat by striking out Ernie Banks.

In the second, Gibson struck out Andre Rodgers, Billy Cowan, and Dick Bertell to give him six strikeouts in just two innings.

“Hoot, you ought to advertise on poles the way Satchel Paige used to,” fellow Cardinals pitcher Lew Burdette told Gibson. “Paige used to advertise that he’d guarantee to strike out the first nine batters.”[2]

Gibson retired all three Cub hitters in the third inning on ground balls before Chicago threatened again in the fourth. After Gibson retired Williams on a fly ball, Santo singled up the middle and Banks reached on an infield single. Once again, Gibson escaped damage, striking out Rodgers looking and getting Cowan to line out to Ken Boyer at third base.

Gibson wouldn’t allow another runner to reach base the remainder of the game, as he retired the final 17 batters he faced. Holding a 1-0 lead in the ninth inning, he got Brock to ground out to first base and struck out Williams and Santo.

“I never saw anyone throw a breaking pitch that exploded like that one,” said Santo, who had two of the Cubs’ four hits against Gibson but also struck out twice.[3]

Santo was asked how Gibson’s fastball measured up against that of Jim Maloney of the Cincinnati Reds.

“Maloney’s ball rises,” Santo replied. “Gibson’s ball goes this way, that way, up and down. Gibson is more deceptive and throws more easily than Maloney.”

Santo was then asked if Gibson’s fastball measured up to that of the Dodgers’ Sandy Koufax.

“Yes, for certain periods, but Gibson throws his breaking stuff as hard as he does his fastball,” Santo said.

Gibson finished the game with 12 strikeouts. He allowed just four hits and lowered his ERA on the season to 2.17.

“Bob had great control and he challenged the hitters all night,” Cardinals manager Johnny Keane said. “In the ninth he went after Billy Williams and Santo as if he were saying, ‘Hurry up, I want to get this over and go home.’”

Cardinals shortstop Dick Groat said he could recall just one game in which Gibson threw as hard as he did against the Cubs that night, and it dated back to 1962, when Groat was on the Pirates and Gibson held him and his teammates to just three hits.

“We got two hits on sliders, one on a curve, none on his fastball,” Groat said. “I felt that for one given night, Gibson was the fastest pitcher I ever faced.”[4]

Chicago’s Larry Jackson, who pitched eight seasons and appeared in three all-star games for the Cardinals before being dealt to the Cubs after the 1962 season, kept the Cardinals off the scoreboard for seven innings and pitched his 2,000^th major-league inning in the sixth before finally allowing a run in the bottom of the eighth.

Groat led off the inning with a single that eluded a diving attempt by Stewart at shortstop and rolled into center field. Boyer followed with a single into left that similarly avoided a diving Santo.

“I was playing close to the line, guarding against an extra-base hit,” Santo said. “If I had been playing Boyer in the normal position, I probably would have got the ball. I missed it by just a few inches.”[5]

With runners on first and third, Bill White hit a hard ground ball back toward the mound that bounced over Jackson and into center field.

“White hit the same pitch I got him out with the time before,” Jackson said. “He didn’t try to pull the ball as he did the time before.”[6]

White was caught in a rundown between first and second, and though Jackson walked Johnny Lewis and gave an intentional pass to Tim McCarver, he escaped the inning without further damage.

Nonetheless, as Richard Dozer wrote in the Chicago Tribune, “The Cubs simply were up against another of the superior men of the major league pitching profession, and Jackson was a luckless but brilliant loser.”[7]

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[1] Neal Russo, “Gibson Polishes Car, Then Cubs,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 21, 1964.

[2] “Redbird Notes: Hoot Fans 6 in First 2 Innings,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 21, 1964.

[3] Russo.

[4] Russo.

[5] Russo.

[6] Russo.

[7] Richard Dozer, “Gibson Sets Down Cubs On 4 Hits, 1-0,” Chicago Tribune, May 21, 1964.

The post How waxing his car helped Bob Gibson shut out the Cubs first appeared on STLRedbirds.com.

The previous night, the fireworks started when Jim Edmonds hit a two-run home run off Chicago’s Carlos Zambrano. The fiery Cubs right-hander felt that Edmonds spent too long admiring the ball as it flew over the right-field wall and shouted at the Cardinals center fielder as he rounded the bases. Tempers flared and the benches cleared before order was restored.

Four innings later, Cardinals third baseman Scott Rolen hit what proved to be the game-winning blast, a two-run home run that broke a 3-3 tie. Zambrano responded immediately by hitting Edmonds with a pitch for the second time that game, earning ejections for Zambrano and Cubs manager Dusty Baker.

With those events fresh on everyone’s mind, it didn’t take long for matters to escalate.

Led by a pitching staff that included Greg Maddux, Kerry Wood, and Mark Prior and a lineup that included Aramis Ramirez, Moises Alou, and Sammy Sosa, the Cubs had entered the season as the National League Central favorites. However, they entered the day trailing the Cardinals by nine games, just half a game ahead of the third-place Cincinnati Reds. Ever since the calendar turned to July, St. Louis had been hot, winning 12 of their previous 14 games, including an eight-game win streak to open the month.

The Cardinals took a brief first-inning lead. Womack drew a leadoff walk and Edgar Renteria laid down a sacrifice bunt to move him to second base. Albert Pujols, who came into the game batting .311, pulled a 3-2 curveball over Alou’s head in left field to give St. Louis a 1-0 lead.

Rolen, batting next, was hit on the arm by a 1-and-2 breaking ball. Though the circumstances made it unlikely that Rusch was throwing at the Cardinals’ third baseman, there seemed little doubt that a response was headed the Cubs’ way. In the bottom half of the inning, Cardinals right-hander Matt Morris delivered that reply by throwing a fastball that sailed behind Cubs center fielder Corey Patterson’s hips.

“I felt it was the right thing to do, to stick up for my teammates,” Morris said. “No one got hurt. In fact, it might have fired them up.”[1]

Indeed, while Morris retired the side in order in the first, he would not be so fortunate the next inning. He led off the inning by walking Alou, and fell behind Derrek Lee 2-and-0 before Lee homered to center field. Ramirez followed with a double, and Michael Barrett launched a line-drive home run over the right-field wall to make it 4-0.

Patterson added a two-run double over Edmonds’ head, and with two outs Alou hit an RBI single up the middle to give the Cubs a 7-1 lead and chase Morris from the game.

“I thought he hit a wall,” La Russa said. “He went out to the mound and it was like all of a sudden somebody punched him in the gut. He was having trouble breathing.”[2]

Pujols and Ramirez traded solo home runs in the third inning to make it 8-2, and in the sixth inning St. Louis began its comeback. After Pujols and Rolen each singled to lead off the inning, Edmonds singled into right field to score Pujols. Baker replaced Rusch with Francis Beltran, who immediately walked Sanders to load the bases, then walked Mike Matheny to score Rolen. So Taguchi reached on an infield single that scored Edmonds, and Ray Lankford hit a sacrifice fly that cut the Cubs’ lead to 8-6.

Pujols made it 8-7 in the top of the seventh when he greeted Kyle Farnsworth’s first-pitch fastball by slugging it over the left-field wall.

 Farnsworth was still holding onto a one-run lead in the eighth inning when he fell behind Taguchi 3-and-1 threw a fastball down the middle of the plate. The diminutive Taguchi turned on the pitch and hit it into Waveland Avenue beyond the left-field wall. Afterwards, Pujols pointed to Taguchi’s home run as the biggest blow of the game.[3]

The teams were still deadlocked 8-8 when the Cubs turned to LaTroy Hawkins for the ninth inning. Renteria led off with an infield single to bring Pujols, already 4-for-4 with two home runs to the plate. Both of Pujols’ blasts had come on the first pitch, so Hawkins was cautious with his first offering, a low fastball. He was less cautious with his second pitch, a fastball out over the plate that Pujols hit the other way over the right-field wall.

Pujols’ three-homer game marked the first time a Cardinal had accomplished the feat since Mark McGwire on May 18, 2000.[4]

“As soon as I hit it, I knew it was out of the park,” Pujols said.[5]

With two outs, Reggie Sanders added a home run to center field to make it 11-8. After striking out Yadier Molina to end the top of the ninth, Hawkins got into an argument with home-plate umpire Tim Tschida and had to be restrained by Baker and four of his fellow coaches.[6]

“Do I regret it? No,” Hawkins said. “I talked to him like a man at first and it didn’t work.”[7]

In the ninth, Cardinals closer Jason Isringhausen worked around two walks and a single to earn the save. It marked the Cardinals’ largest comeback since July 28, 2002, when they rallied from a 6-0, third-inning deficit to beat the Cubs.[8]

It was a strong showing for the Cardinals bullpen, which allowed just one run in 7 1/3 innings, including three innings from Eldred and two shutout innings from Kiko Calero. Ray King earned the win after retiring the side in order in the eighth.

“It just shows the character of this team,” Isringhausen said. “After our big win Monday, we could have been content to leave town with a split … but we kept plugging away, plugging away. That’s how we do it. This is just a great win for us.”

With the win, the division-leading Cardinals moved 10 games ahead of the Cubs, who were leap-frogged by Cincinnati and fell into third place.

“This is the happiest I’ve ever been after giving up seven runs in 1 2/3 innings,” said Morris, who optimistically noted that the Cardinals’ comeback would not have been possible if he hadn’t allowed seven runs in the second inning.[9] “It’s unbelievable. To win that game against that team, with the position we’re in, it’s just a snowball effect. It keeps getting bigger.”[10]

In the next day’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch, columnist Bernie Miklasz compared Pujols’ performance to another classic Cardinals-Cubs showdown: the “Ryne Sandberg game” of June 23, 1984, in which Sandberg went 5-for-6 with two home runs and seven RBIs, helping to spur the Cubs to the 1984 division championship.

“Citizens of Cardinals Nation: We have a reverse Ryno,” Miklasz wrote. “Two decades later, the St. Louis-Chicago rivalry has crowned a new comeback king – His Majesty Albert Pujols.”[11]

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[1] Dave van Dyke, “Rallying the best revenge,” Chicago Tribune, July 21, 2004: Page 4-1.

[2] Joe Strauss, “Cubs gum it up; Birds stick it to ’em,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 21, 2004: D1.

[3] Strauss.

[4] Strauss.

[5] Strauss.

[6] Paul Sullivan, “Losing it … again,” Chicago Tribune, July 21, 2004: 4-1.

[7] Sullivan.

[8] Strauss.

[9] van Dyke.

[10] Strauss.

[11] Bernie Miklasz, “In Sandberg’s yard, Pujols shows he’s second to none,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 21, 2004: D1.

The post July 20, 2004: Albert Pujols goes 5-for-5 with three home runs in Cardinals’ comeback first appeared on STLRedbirds.com.