Road Trip: Race Horses and Storm Chasers

     The road trip to Omaha rolled on as we spent the day with Ryan, who showed us the sights of his new hometown.

Ryan. Cherie and I saw the various markets and attractions of Omaha, but for me, there were two stops that I wanted to see most of all, and Ryan was kind enough to make that happen.

The first stop that I really wanted to make was a return to Omaha suburb Gretna and Werner Park, the home of the Omaha Storm Chasers, the AAA affiliate of the Kansas City Royals.

One thing that I didn't know before the trip was that the Storm Chasers didn't use the same ballpark downtown that is used for the College World Series.

I just assumed that was the case and was surprised to hear that the Storm Chasers had their own facility.

Werner Park didn't stand out from the interstate, and it seemed to be tucked away in an area filled with industrial businesses and homes, but it was easy to find and had plenty of places to park, unlike the urban stadiums, where parking is always a pain.

Walking outside the stadium is a beautiful statue of Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Gibson, an Omaha native who also attended Creighton University in the city.

The statue is very well done and captures Gibson's release from the mound perfectly.

We didn't stay very long, long enough to hit the team store, snap a few pictures, and watch enough to count Werner Park on the visited stadiums list.

We then returned to Omaha to look for a small monument to the racehorse Omaha, who was the third horse to win the Triple Crown, and who lived out his life in Nebraska after a poor career at stud.

Ak-Sar-Ben (Nebraska spelled backward) Race Course was the center of Nebraska horse racing before being torn down in 2005, and somewhere in the area, Omaha is buried.

The remains weren't found when the facility was razed, although occasionally writers use modern methods to try to pinpoint where they may rest.

Now the area is called AkSarBen Village with an entertainment village, a park, and an arena that hosts events for the Nebraska-Omaha sports teams.

We would return to the hotel afterward for the evening to prepare for a Memorial Day cookout the following day at Ryan's, which I had a surprisingly good time considering that it combined the outdoors and meeting new people, neither of which are noted as favorites of mine.

In our next and possibly final installment, we start our final day in Omaha, travel to Lincoln, say goodbye to Ryan and family, and take the long way home.

It is possible that there could be two posts depending on the length of the post.

 

Bob Gibson

Coming off the heels of a September that saw the baseball world lose two Hall of Famers when Tom Seaver and Lou Brock left us, it didn't take long for October to make its claim as Bob Gibson passed away at the age of 84.

Bob Gibson was one of a group of pitchers in the National League in the 1960s that, in my opinion, comprised the greatest period for pitching talent in one league in the history of baseball.

Every team had at least one, sometimes two excellent pitchers and in many cases all-time greats.

The Dodgers had Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale, the Giants Juan Marichal, and Gaylord Perry along with 1967 Cy Young winner Mike Mccormick, the Braves had Warren Spahn at the beginning of the decade, and Phil Niekro at the end with Tony Cloninger in the middle (24 game-winner in 1965), the Cubs with Fergie Jenkins and Bill Hands, the Reds with Jim Maloney, young phenom Gary Nolan, and Joey Jay and Milt Pappas at opposite hands of the decade, the Phillies started Jim Bunning and Chris Short, the Pirates had Bob Veale, Bob Friend, and Vernon Law and the expansion teams weren't to be forgotten with the Mets with Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman and the Colt 45s/Astros had three in Larry Dierker, Don Wilson, and Mike Cuellar who received such little offensive support that he won only eight of twenty-eight games in 1968 despite an ERA of 2.74.

And then there were the Cardinals.

The Cardinals had a young Steve Carlton, an old Curt Simmons, and two others with a twenty-win season in the decade in Ernie Broglio and Ray Sadecki, but they had the baddest man of all in Bob Gibson.

Not only did Bob Gibson win 15 or more games every season but one from 1962-72 ( Gibson won 13 in 1967 after missing some time due to a broken leg suffered from a Roberto Clemente line drive), you could expand that by moving the number to double-digit victories to 1961-74.

Moving that statistic means Gibson won eleven games (his low in 1974) every year from his second full season (Gibson pitched in 13 games in 1959 and 27 in 1960) to the season before his retirement in 1975.

Twenty wins or more every season from 1965-70 other than the aforementioned 1967, won nineteen games in 1964 and 72, eight All-Star games, nine Gold Gloves, two Cy Young (1968 and 1970) Awards, a no-hitter in 1971, and the National League MVP in 1968.

Gibson struck out 200 or more batters on nine occasions and wasn't wild either as he walked more than 100 batters only twice after his first full season (103 and 104 walks allowed) and did so pitching over 200 innings every year from 1961-74 except for the injury season in 1967 and just missing in 1973 when he pitched 195 innings.

Bob Gibson brings a few things to mind when his name is mentioned.

First, Gibson was a tremendous athlete, playing basketball at Creighton, averaging over twenty points a game, and spent time with one of the Harlem Globetrotters traveling teams.

Gibson was the ultimate big-game pitcher winning two game seven's in the World Series defeating the Yankees in 1964 and the Red Sox in 1967.

Gibson almost won another game seven in 1968, but a wrong path on a flyball by Curt Flood resulted in two runs scoring that meant the difference in the game against the Detroit Tigers.

Gibson was also known for his heavy fastball and wipeout slider and his fierce nature on the mound.

Gibson refused to talk to opposing players and wouldn't even converse with his fellow National Leaguers at All-Star games in case they would find a weakness in him.

Gibson's best friend on the Cardinals was first baseman Bill White and during the first at-bat for White against Gibson, after White was traded to Philadelphia, Gibson made sure to drill White with a pitch to assure White there were no friends when you played against Bob Gibson.

The Gibson glare wilted even the best hitters as even Willie Mays was known for bailing out against Gibson and Mays wasn't the only hitter either.

Gibson's presence extended to teammates when he broke the strikeout record for strikeouts in a World Series game and demanded catcher Tim McCarver "get his ass back behind the plate" as McCarver attempted to inform Gibson that the record had just been broken with a mound trip.

You cannot write a Bob Gibson piece without talking about 1968 and the most phenomenal season in my lifetime and perhaps ever.

Gibson won the Cy Young and the MVP award for the season for the National League champion Cardinals, but those awards and his 22-9 record, while impressive, don't tell the entire story.

Let's start with an ERA of 1.12 over 304 innings, move to complete games in 28 of 34 starts, transition to a WHIP of 0.85, and end with this- Bob Gibson allowed only thirty-eight earned runs all season.

The Cardinals scored TWELVE runs in Gibson's nine losses, Gibson lost twice 1-0, and once 2-0, and I've read (although I cannot find the link) that if the 1968 Cardinals had averaged four runs per game in Gibson's starts, Gibson would have finished an astonishing 31-2 and joined Denny McLain (also in 1968) as baseball's last 30 game-winners.

The "Year of the Pitcher" forced an alarmed baseball bunch to change the dimensions of the mound (leveling it from fifteen inches to ten) and the strike zone (dropping the high strike from the armpits to the letters of the jersey) to add offense to the game because this is baseball and when in doubt change the game for more run-scoring (Sound familiar?).

Those rules were unofficially termed the "Gibson Rules" in honor of the Cardinal righthander.

Bob Gibson would sometimes bristle when someone would state that Sandy Koufax was the pitcher of the '60s and had been known to state that for all of the brilliance that Koufax possessed it was Gibson who was the true pitcher of the '60s (Juan Marichal actually led the decade in wins) because he was strong at the start of the decade and at the finish, while Koufax had six sensational seasons and was finished after 1966.

Gibson may have had a point as for as good as both were, it was Gibson who was far more durable and yet always at an elite level.

The highest compliment that I can give is when I ask a question about this for sports.

If you had to pick a player to win a game in their sport with the future of the Earth on the line, who would you pick?

If I had to win that game in baseball- I'm handing the ball to Bob Gibson.