orig. Pack Robert Gibson
born Nov. 9, 1935, Omaha, Neb., U.S.
U.S. baseball pitcher.
Gibson was an outstanding high-school baseball and basketball player. As a right-handed pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals (1961–75) who was at his best in crucial games, Gibson won seven of the nine World Series games in which he pitched. In 1968 he started 34 games, completed 28, and had an earned run average of 1.12. He pitched quickly, and his best pitches were a fastball and a slider. During his career he had 3,117 strikeouts, making him the first pitcher to accumulate more than 3,000 since Walter Johnson in the 1920s.