John Steigerwald: Bob Gibson's dominance hard to watch as Pirates fan

Bob Gibson brushed me back once.

More on that in a minute. Gibson died Friday from pancreatic cancer. He was 84.

Every player who tried to get a hit over the last 52 years can thank Gibson. His 1.12 ERA in 1968 was the last straw for major league owners who had seen pitching become way too dominant in the ’60s.

They decided to lower the mound from 15 inches to 10 and shrink the strike zone. It worked. The average runs per game jumped from 6.84 to 8.14.

It’s been easier to hit ever since.

Gibson was the second major league pitcher to throw a no-hitter in Pittsburgh. It was never done in Forbes Field from 1909-70. The first happened Sept. 20, 1907, when Nicholas Maddox no-hit the Brooklyn Superbas at Exposition Park. Maddox did so before his 21st birthday.

Gibson did it on a Saturday evening (Aug. 14, 1971) at Three Rivers Stadium in front of 30,678 fans, including me.

Sort of.

My friends and I were huge Pirates fans. I probably bought tickets to 60 games that season: the Pirates’ first full season at Three Rivers Stadium.

My buddy, Goose, and I bought a $2 general admission ticket and, as usual, bribed “Hooks” the usher and got good seats along the third-base line.

It was obvious by the third inning the Pirates had no chance that day. The Cardinals scored five runs in the first inning, and the Pirates hitters looked helpless.

After five, it was 8-0, and the Pirates hadn’t even hit a loud foul ball.

This was a huge game for the Pirates. They were in first place in the National League East, but their lead — that was as high as 11 games on July 20 — was down to five and a half.

After the Pirates finished batting in the bottom of the eighth, Goose and I agreed there was no way the Pirates were going to get a hit off this guy, so we made the decision to leave.

As we were moving out of our seats into the aisle, people were asking us why we were leaving.

“He’s pitching a no-hitter,” they said.

“We know. That’s exactly why we’re leaving.”

We were in no mood, in the heat of a pennant race, to hear 30,000 Pirates fans cheering for a loss.

I can still hear Bob Prince describing Gibson’s strikeout of Willie Stargell for the last out as we were driving up Green Tree Hill.

To this day, Goose and I agree we made the right move.

If you were a Pirates fan back then, you despised Bob Gibson. He was known to throw at hitters, and he was happy to tell you it was a big reason for his success.

He loved to knock Roberto Clemente down.

On July 17, 1967, in St. Louis, after Clemente and several of his teammates had been knocked down, Clemente, who was a lifetime .208 hitter against Gibson, broke his leg with a line drive back to the mound.

Pirates fans liked to believe Clemente did it on purpose.

It became part of the Clemente legend.

In an interview in 2014, his teammate that day, Manny Mota, said it was no myth.

“Gibson was knocking guys down. Roberto came in the dugout and said, ‘I am going to break that guy’s leg.’ First pitch in the next at-bat, he hit a line drive off Gibson’s leg and broke it. He said he would do it, and he did. Incredible.”

Now, about that brushback.

I was in St. Petersburg, Fla., covering the Pirates in spring training for WTAE-TV in the early ’80s. I saw Gibson walk by and, even though I knew he had a reputation for not being fond of the media, since it was in the more relaxed spring training setting, I walked up and said, “Excuse me, Bob can…”

He turned to me, looked down, got in my face and screamed, “Nooooo.”

OK, so maybe it was a brush off.

Maybe he saw me and Goose walk out on his no-hitter.