“My thing was winning,” Gibson said in his autobiography, “Stranger to the Game,” written with Lonnie Wheeler and published in 1994. He said this with a little smile, but it seemed to me that he meant it: he couldn’t let himself lose to anyone. His father, Pack Gibson, died a few months before his birth and his mother, Victoria, worked in a laundry. His brother Josh, a graduate of Creighton University in Omaha, became his mentor and introduced him to recreational programs he oversaw. Bob Gibson became an all-city basketball player in high school and played several positions on an American Legion baseball team that won a city title.

Source: New York Times October 03, 2020 03:17 UTC