Sayers And Gibby!

 Hey I come from a the worlds biggest small town. Omaha. Back when I was a young un the pride of my hometown was virtually nobody. We were a quiet unassuming folk and went about our lives voting Republican and knowing everyone knew their place. This a segregated city to this day, however back in the 60s it was far worse. But man, did we have heroes who made it once they left the chains of Omaha.

Gale Sayers died two weeks ago after suffering from dementia for years. Sayers was from North Omaha and was a football star at Omaha Central. He spurned Nebraska because like now, they sucked, and went south to Kansas where he became an All American. I wish I could say I was old enough to remember Sayers running 99 yards for a TD against the Nebraska team he said no to in 1963. That record, of course, still stands to this day in Lincoln. 

Sayers went to my favorite NFL team, Da Bears, after his stellar career at KU and tghrilled everyone in my household. My Mom wasnt even a pro football fan yet tuned in every week the the Bears were on just to watch Gale Sayers run. He was unlike anything we'd ever seen. 18 inches of daylight. Watch that and remember it was 1965. Unreal even now. Sayers blew out his knee in 1969 and before the advent of  reconstructive surgeries, it ruined him. He remains the youngest man ever admitted to to the NFL Hall of Fame when in 1977 he was 34. 

God he was thrilling.

Bob Gibson was my jam. Baseball was my jam. And laying in bed at night and moving the dials of a transistor radio just so on good clear nights I could get the St Louis radio broadcast of any game Bob Gibson pitched. As you can tell from the picture, every pitch Gibby threw made it look all of his extremities were going to fly off. The mound and the plate were his ,goddamit ,and you better respect that or face the consequences.

Bob Gibson was mean as hell. He absolutely refused to lose, Im sure when he saw current players talking to the  opponent before games he was infuriated, Thats the enemy!

1968 made the baseball gurus CHANGE THE RULES because of Bob Gibson, He was 22-9 and had a 1.12 ERA. He had 13 shutouts. He was so utterly dominant they lowered the mound to give the hitters a chance. Incredible as 1.12 was, the stat that amazed me even more was 9 teams actually beat him. How?

Now hes gone too.

My childhood is becoming sadder.