Celebrate '68: Drysdale Outduels Gibson At Busch

  On May 22, 1968, Bob Gibson and the Redbirds hosted Don Drysdale and the Dodgers in St. Louis. Drysdale had come to the mound that day having thrown 20 consecutive innings of scoreless baseball.  When he left town, he had thrown 29.  Gibson was a more than formidable foe, surrendering only one run.  As it turned out, that one run was all Drysdale would need in what proved to be a 2-0 Cardinals loss at Busch.

          Drysdale was the story of the day because of extending his streak. However, Bob Gibson was… well, he was Bob Gibson. The Cardinals legend allowed just one hit over eight innings of work. In the third, Gibby issued a one out walk to second baseman Paul Popovich.  He then served up a double to first baseman Wes Parker bringing Popovich around to score.

          Meanwhile, Drysdale set down batter after batter. He would end up allowing just five hits in his complete game effort, while Gibson’s day would end in the eighth after being lifted for a pinch hitter. Gibby’s teammate Joe Hoerner took over in the ninth for the Cardinals and watched the Dodgers tack on an insurance run. However, that run was not charged to the reliever because of a throwing error by Orlando Cepeda.

  There were just 9,560 fans in attendance that night at Busch Stadium. While they may have walked away disappointed, rightfully so, the fact of the matter is they were witnessing history on the grandest of scales.  On one side of that scale was Bob Gibson. He was at the top of his game, as would be the case throughout that 1968 season, allowing just the one hit, striking out six, and dropping his ERA from 1.36 to 1.34. On the other side of that scale sat Don Drysdale: allowing five hits, striking out eight, and walking away with a nearly equally impressive ERA of 1.64.

         What was more impressive in the long run for Drysdale was his scoreless inning streak. It would not be snapped until 18 days later; it came to a halt after throwing 58 and 2/3 consecutive innings of scoreless baseball, breaking Walter Johnson’s record of 55 and 2/3 consecutive innings. 20 years after Drysdale set the mark, he would be in the booth to watch another Dodger by the name of Orel Hershiser break his record by going 59 innings. Drysdale is still second on the all-time list. Bob Gibson is third on the list. We will get into that later…


Check out the box score here: https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SLN/SLN196805220.shtml

Sources included:  The Bakersfield Californian, The St. Petersburg Times, The Southern Illinoisan, The Mount Vernon Register-News, ESPN.com/classicmoments, mlb.com/news/longest-scoreless-inning-streaks-in-history, and Baseballreference.com