The Biggest Pitcher I Ever Saw
Posted: February 17th, 2010 | Filed under: Baseball | 42 Comments »
Here is what I remember about Jim Bibby: He was a giant. I don’t mean that in some sort of literary sense. No, I really thought of him as the biggest man I had ever seen in my entire life.
Isn’t that a funny thing about baseball? If you love the game, really love it, then it isn’t just the superstars that capture our imagination. Even a relatively nondescript pitcher like Jim Bibby can fill the mind of a 9- or 10-year-old child and take on superhuman qualities. Bibby was a big man — he was 6-foot-5, 235 pounds — and he was muscular. But, let’s be honest: There were other big men during his era. Dave Frost was just as big. Dick Radatz. Stan Williams. Tim Stoddard, of course. Steve Renko was huge. Bill Dawley was a big ol’ guy. And, of course, football players were bigger, basketball players were bigger …
But, no, to me, Jim Bibby dwarfed everyone. That’s because his size went beyond his size. There was his intimidating look. There was his big afro, and his “don’t mess with me” mustache. There was the time I stood next to him — shortest kid in my fifth grade class — and thought he stretched into the clouds.
Even beyond that, Jim Bibby was one of those rare pitchers who, at any time, seemed capable of doing something miraculous. He threw a no-hitter in his rookie year, 1973, and in the years to come he threw two one-hitters and four two-hitters. He threw 19 shutouts — fourth among pitchers with fewer than 1,800 innings pitched. When Bibby was good, Bibby was good.
Take his historic 1974 season with the Rangers. That year, Bibby won 19 games with a horrifically bad 75 ERA+. Nobody in baseball history has ever won that many games with a sub-80 ERA+. How did he do it? Well, for one thing, he lost 19 games too. But, more to the point, he simply was great some days, awful on others.
In his 19 victories, he had a 2.50 ERA and the league hit .194 against him.
In his 19 losses, he had a 9.23 ERA* and the league hit .359/.443/.589 against him. To give you an idea of just how awful this, the league leading core numbers were .364/.433/.563 (Carew/Carew/Allen).
*Yes, that’s right, 9.23 ERA — and this was in 1974 when Dick Allen led the American League with 32 home runs. Nobody else even hit 30. Two players drove in 100 RBIs and nobody scored even 95.
– His first six starts, Bibby was 4-2 with a 3.05 ERA, four complete games including a shutout.
– His next six starts, Bibby was 1-5 with an 8.07 ERA, and the game he won he allowed nine runs in eight innings.
– His next six starts (you getting the pattern?), Bibby was 5-1 with a 2.44 ERA and had two shutouts.
– His next six starts (it’s amazing how this is working), Bibby was 1-4 with a 5.91 ERA — he actually pitched well in a couple of those games, but in his first two starts of the stretch he did not make it out of the second inning either time.
– Then he threw a shutout at Yankee Stadium.
– Then he went 3-2 with a 7.86 ERA in his next five outings.
– Then he threw a shutout against Detroit.
And so on.
It’s a remarkable season. The rest of his career was not quite so up and down, not quite the same blend of brilliant and disastrous. But Jim Bibby always seemed to carry a part of 1974 with him … it seemed like most days when he went out there to pitch, a team would say “Oh man, we don’t stand a chance tonight.” Trouble is, you never knew which team.
My personal experience with Bibby was, as mentioned, in 1976 and ‘77 when he pitched for the Cleveland Indians. The Tribe had traded Gaylord Perry for Bibby and cash and the most frustrating pitcher of my childhood, a lefty named Rick Waits. Those were my most impressionable baseball years, and those were odd Indians teams. The ‘76 Indians were actually decent — went 81-78, scored and allowed the same number of runs, had a kick-butt bullpen with Dave LaRoche, Jim Kern and Stan Thomas. Then, in ‘77*, they were supposed to compete because in addition to all that they signed Wayne Garland to a big contract, and young Dennis Eckersley seemed ready to emerge into stardom, and Rick Manning had won a Gold Glove, and Rick Waits was supposed to breakout and Duane Kuiper was Duane Kuiper and … no, it didn’t work out.
*I should mention that I actually agreed to be in a league where I’m supposed to manage some computer version of the 1977 Cleveland Indians. Unfortunately, I think I was supposed to actually DO something, and I have done nothing because, well, my schedule is constantly careening out of control (he says as he writes a Jim Bibby post from a hotel room in New York where he just had the misfortune of watching the New Jersey Nets-Miami Heat game). I probably should not agree to be in leagues.
Bibby, though, pitched his guts out for the team, especially in ‘77. Nine times that year he started games and allowed one earned run or less. He pitched out of the bullpen in September, and except for one cataclysmic outing at Comiskey, he pitched well. I loved Bibby. Big, wild, overpowering, frustrating, scary, larger than life.
You know, baseball wasn’t like it is now where you can keep up with every rumor and every signing and every free agent. Well, maybe you could back then too … but I didn’t know how. The point is, I don’t know when I realized that the Indians no longer had Bibby. I suppose it was during spring training. I probably said to my Dad — what happened to Jim Bibby? And he probably told me that Bibby had signed with Pittsburgh. I don’t remember the moment or how I felt. I only remember watching the Indians in 1978 and wishing big Jim Bibby was still around … his big guy stature was somewhat replaced by Paul Reuschel, which wasn’t the same at all. The Indians lost 90 games again.
Bibby had his greatest moments in PIttsburgh. He went 12-4 with a 2.81 ERA for the We Are Family Pirates of ‘79 and pitched well in both the NLCS and World Series (though he did not get a decision in either). And in 1980, he had his bit or recognition — he won 19 games, finished third in the Cy Young voting, and threw a scoreless inning in his only All-Star Game. He was already 35 when that happened — Bibby had gotten a late start in the big leagues (he had been drafted and served two years in Vietnam).
He was pitching well in 1981 when he had his last true Jim Bibby moment. Against Atlanta in May, Terry Harper led off with a single. And Bibby, from that point on, threw the perfect game … 27-up and 27-down. It was one of the few times in baseball history that a pitcher got more hits than he allowed — Bibby went 2-for-3 with a run scored and RBI. That was the guy I loved. You never knew when he would leave you breathless.
Then the strike happened. Then Bibby blew out his rotator cuff and was never again the same. He did try to pitch in 1983, but by then the good Bibby was gone — leaving behind a 5-12 record with a 6.69 ERA. All in all, Bibby 111-101 with a 3.76 ERA — a 99 ERA+ if you are scoring at home.
You probably heard that Jim Bibby died Tuesday night at a hospital in Virginia. He was 65 years old. Whenever an old ballplayer dies, it feels like a bit of childhood goes with him. That’s how I feel tonight. Jim Bibby was a great pitcher. He also was not a great pitcher. It depended on the day. He was on all days the biggest pitcher I ever saw.
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Circle me Andre the Giant!
He also, if I recall correctly, was known for being able to hold several baseballs in one hand. RIP, Big Jim.
I grew up a Mets Fan but Jim Bibby was the first non Mets player I ever rooted for. I had not heard that he died before reading this but I understand the feeling of a part of childhood dying along with him. I’m pretty sure I was a 7 year old Bibby fan on Long Island in 1981 because I liked his Topps card. I remember my dad calling me to come inside because Jim was on TV. I lost my dad a few months ago and this post brought up a lot of special father/son memories for me. Rest in Peace Jim Bibby. Thanks Joe.
As a young Detroit Tigers fan, I wrote Tony Clark to ask (among other things) how he became so huge. I remember thinking it had something to do with Michigan-made Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes and that he was the man Tony the Tiger was modeled after.
Great piece.
Wonderful piece, Joe. Hadn’t heard that Mr. Bibby had died — around the 3/4 mark of this article, I started wondering “I wonder why Joe is writing about Jim Bibby?” & literally shuddered when I read the first sentence of your final paragraph.
Though it happens more & more often as we age, it is always a mournful moment when a figure from your childhood passes away.
I continue to be awed by your ability to capture the essence of what it felt like to be a 10-year-old sports fan — especially a 10-year-old fan of a bad team. To many, mid-70s baseball memories are centered around Reggie leading the Bronx Zoo or Pete battling alongside the other members of the Machine. But for me, that era brings recollections of pretending I was Pat Dobson while throwing to my toss-back in the backyard, or cheering when the Indians’ PA announcer used to stretch out “Rrrrrrrick Mmmmmmmanning!” like his coming to the plate was something to celebrate (which, to me & my little brother, it was).
On a day when another small yet hardly insignificant part of those childhood memories has gone, I just wanted to say thanks for expressing what it felt like then — and acknowledging what it feels like now.
The We R Fam-A-Lee Pirates were my team! Bibby was great that year and was very good in his first four years with Pittsburgh, so I never knew about his up-and-down early career. I hadn’t heard about his death. Thanks, Joe, for writing this.
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This is one of the greatest eulogies I’ve ever read. What a sweet article, thanks.
Hey Joe:
Check your e-mails. I’m the guy running the ’77 league you referred to. You’ll be glad to know it requires almost NONE of your time.
Great piece, as always.
Great eulogy. I read about Bibby’s death in a soulless press release on MLB.com, but this really put his career in perspective. Thanks, and R.I.P. Big Jim.
Although I am interested in hearing how you got to meet Jim Bibby in 5th grade.
Forget being cryogenically frozen when I die. All I want is for Joe to write my eulogy after interviewing a few of my family and friends. Where can I sign up for that? Money is no object (because I’ll be dead).
This is wonderful. For anyone who wants to weep about Big Jim a little more, I’d recommend Billy Martin’s autobiography, “Number 1,” frustration at trying to get Bibby his 20th win…
Joe, the Yankees were playing at Shea in 1974 when Bibby shut them out 2-0. Sandy Alomar had two of the Yankees’ three hits, and Bobby Murcer had the other.
As a ten-year-old I could not get over the sensation that it didn’t seem right that Jim Bibby at 6’5″ was playing baseball while his 6’1 brother Henry was playing basketball. Jim did everything in a big way; during one game that was televised on Monday night baseball, so much sweat was dripping off his cap that my Uncle Butch proposed that he install gutters on it.
As a young Braves fan back then, I can definitely attest to Bibby’s all-or-nothing performances. I watched the “perfect game”, and also a game in 1983 when, after getting two outs in the third inning, he proceeded to give up four consecutive walks before giving way to Jim Winn, who then walked three MORE in a row:
http://tinyurl.com/ydkbvpw
Until about five minutes ago, I had no clue the Jim Bibby was related to Henry and Mike Bibby.
Condolences to the Bibby family. Great piece, Joe.
Wow, I had not heard about this. The Fam-a-lee Pirates were my introduction to baseball and my all-time favorite team. I remember that 1981 game with Atlanta well. It was televised locally by KDKA, a treat in an era when only maybe 20 games a year were on local TV.
Bibby was probably my favorite starting pitcher on that team. Even at age seven he just struck me as a cool cat. He had a fro and a stache and he could hold I think seven baseballs in one hand and he was a big dude who threw hard. I had a black-and-white picture of him tucked into the frame of my bedroom mirror. He was an easy guy for a kid to like.
It feels too soon for guys from the 79 Pirate team to be gone. Then again it also feels too soon for me to be this old.
Mikey @17: “It feels too soon for guys from the 79 Pirate team to be gone…”
Sadly, Bibby isn’t the first. Jon Milner, Bill Robinson, Dock Ellis, Dave Roberts and, of course, Willie Stargell, all preceded him.
Congrats on writing a great eulogy without even mentioning that Jim Bibby could sweat naked on a glacier.
I loved Bibby as a young Pirate fan. It won’t be long before all the members of the last Pirate championship team are gone.
Condolences to Bibby’s family. His career was before my time, but (as always having read Poz) I wish I could have watched him.
On a related note, is it safe to call Luke Hocheaver “Baby Bibby”?
Why i read this site….
“it seemed like most days when he went out there to pitch, a team would say “Oh man, we don’t stand a chance tonight.” Trouble is, you never knew which team.”
Great, great eulogy Joe. I also didn’t know Mike Bibby was Jim Bibby’s nephew.
I expect Joe and I (I turn 41 in 2 days, I think Joe is 2 years older) and many others who come here are roughly the same age. Is this what we have to look forward to the next few years, more and more of our sports heroes from our youth dying off. I don’t think I like it. One day when I have to add Patek, and Mayberry and White and Leonard and Brett to the list that includes Mingori, and Cowens and the Quiz and the tragic Darrell Porter (and Mr. and Mrs. K and Dick Howser too), I will be very sad.
Sure he was good, but he never would’ve won that National Championship without Miles Simon…
Post your age, dammit Joe! It’s just a number, and it would help us compare our childhood memories .
For me, too, Jim Bibby will always be mixed with childhood memories, but as I’m roughly 10 years younger than you (my best guess), my memories of Bibby are from the 1979-80 Pirates. I’m a lifelong Red Sox fan, but my Dad grew up in Pittsburgh. Bibby was one of the first non-Sox players whose name I knew; I didn’t know Willie Stargell, but I knew Jim Bibby. I had Bibby’s 1980 Topps card. I couldn’t understand why people gushed over John Candelaria and Bert Blyleven, when Bibby was so clearly (in my mind) better, at least on that 1979 team. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized why think people like Candelaria and (especially) Blyleven were better than Bibby, but for me, Bibby will always be the elite pitcher he was in 1979, for a World Championship team.
Rest in peace, Jim.
Paul White, you’re bumming me out, man!
Today is my birthday and one thing you really don’t want to hear on your birthday as you rapidly approach middle age is that one-fifth of your childhood team has moved on to the ultimate field of dreams.
Dock Ellis actually wasn’t part of that 79 team, but no matter. That was a passing that hit me hard too. One of my favorite players ever.
Have to take that back about Dock. He did appear in three games at the end of that season. Should have looked it up. I have no recollection of him being on that team.
I got a chance to meet Big Jim in Lynchburg, Va a few years ago; well, maybe 15. He was huge to me, too, and I’m 6-4.
He was a very nice man, and, if I remember correctly, was a coach in the Pirates’ system for a while. The night I met him, though, he was just hanging out at the Lynchburg Hillcats’ stadium.
Via Craig Calcaterra & Jay Jaffe, this Bibby quote from a book by Mike Shropshire:
“Jim Bibby, who for reasons known only to himself went by the “stage name” of Fontay O’Rooney, was by no means a complete major league pitcher. But he threw a vicious fastball — “serious heat . . . severe gas” — that would scare the bejesus out of most American League batters. Parenthetically, Bibby could also lay claim to owning the biggest apparatus of manhood in baseball — an appendage of near-equine proportions — and it was to Bob Short’s eternal frustration that he could never harness that particular novelty into a gate attraction at Arlington Stadium.”
http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2010/02/jim-bibby-1944-2010.html.php
My first job in journalism was in Lynchburg, Va. My beats were Liberty University (with Sam Rutigliano as head coach) and the Lynchburg Red Sox (with Greg Blosser as its star rookie). You would have liked this gig, Joe. Anyway, Jim Bibby was the assistant manager for the L-Sox, and after every home game he sat in the manager’s office with me and broke down the evenings events. As intimidated as I was covering baseball (which was and still is not my strength), the massive Bibby always put me at ease with his jokes and his unfailingly nice manner. He and the free concessions they brought up to us in the rooftop press box were the only things I thoroughly enjoyed about covering that team. I haven’t spoken to him in almost 20 years, but now that he’s gone I feel a real sense of loss. What a great guy and him will be missed.
Looks like Jim had some great company on his way to Heaven…
http://www.football.co.uk/chelsea/petar_borota_dead_rss409557.shtml
Jim Bibby was the starting pitcher for the Indians at the first MLB game I ever went to. I think it was 1977 at Fenway. I was 8 and remember being feverishly excited about seeing Jim Rice, Fred Lynn, Carlton Fisk and Yaz in person. Unfortunately, because it was the 2nd game of a day/night doubleheader, Lynn and Fisk didn’t play.
But Rice homered.
Of course, Bibby pretty much shut them down that day. So, I saw one of Bibby’s good days.
I think the biggest current player I ever saw was Frank Thomas.
From my childhood…it would have to be Al Hrabosky. He might not have really been that big…but when he stood on the back of the mound and slammed his fist into his mitt…man…he SEEMED huge.
Although…with the size of the scoreboard at Kauffman Stadium…all the players seem tiny.
I met Jim Bibby a couple of times when I was an undergrad at Lynchburg(VA) College from ’72-’74. During the off-season, he would work out with LC’s baseball team(his hometown of Madison Heights is just across the James River from Lynchburg), and I would often go down and watch him throw. If you’ve never been that close to a fastball hitting the catcher’s mitt, the sound is hard to describe in words; you need to be there to experience it. Anyway, Jim was, indeed, a very big man, but he was a gentle giant and was very approachable, as well. I am a lifelong Cardinals fan, so I knew a bit about him before I met him. We only talked once, but he appreciated my love of the Cardinals and my seemingly endless and inane questions.
After he retired, he spent 15 years as the pitching coach for Lynchburg’s Carolina League team, working for the Mets’, Red Sox, and Pirates’ organizations in the process, and in 2002, the Hillcats(our current incarnation) retired his number 26.
His passing leaves a bit of a hole in my heart, but just like his former battery mate Ed Ott said, Bibby is in a better place with other Pirates(and Cardinals) legends.
“Right now I know he’s up there with Stargell and Bill Robinson and you know the rest of the guys who passed away so they’re waiting for us to get another team together.”
R.I.P my friend; you’ll be sorely missed.
I met Jim Bibby about 15 years ago as a teenager. My friend and I would spend many summer nights at Potomac Cannons (now Nationals) games just trying to get close to a future big-leaguer or two. While most were nice enough to sign an autograph, they clearly had more important things to do. Jim Bibby, who was the pitching coach for Lynchburg, was different. Each time they visited Potomac he would make it a point to come over and talk baseball with the two of us for a couple minutes each time, and I believe he genuinely enjoyed it. I have an autographed Pirates card of him, but it’s the memories of his kindness that I treasure more. He will be missed.
As a tribe fan, Jim Bibby was quite a decent pitcher (but no Gaylord the Great) in his time. And when the Tribe acquired Bibby, of course the article mentioned his brother Henry Bibby ( i want to say he played for the 76′rs at the time). It was standard hype for the PD sports always to mention the noted family members when these deals were consumed for the Tribe or Browns.
As stated by ‘ck’ in post #14, Bibby could work up a sweat walking out to the mound on a 50 degree evening. I loved to watch him dripping out on the mound that looked a little smaller when he was atop it.
Rest in peace, Jim Bibby. A wonderful gentleman and sometime superb MLB pitcher has moved on to the Iowa cornfield in the sky…
Very cool. The local sports station here in Dallas just went over your post in praise of Bibby. Right down to nearly quoting the paragraph on the 27-up/27-down game in 1981.
The influence of the Poz is spreading.
Thanks Joe.
they don’t make em like that anymore – Greg Kihn Band
The older I get things which have stuck in my mind amaze me. Joe, Great stuff I feel guilty reading your wonderful free blog. Bought your book though.
I had the pleasure of watching many Lombardi coached Packer teams practice. Heck anybody could park and sit in the high schoolish bleachers anytime and enjoy. My gramps and I often took advantage.
Of all the Hall of famers, all the characters, Carol Dale an impish wide receiver has been imbedded in my memory. (Dale was pretty good) He must have been working off an injury or something running just to the side of the bleachers. He was injured a lot. It was very hot day for Green Bay when Dale took his white T-shirt off. I was 12 or so.
WOW! What looked like a tiny man child on television was rippled with muscle. Not over 10 feet away. I had imagined a gaunt x track star barely able to avoid being broken in two on television. Never saw anything like this before. Dale was the stongest person I’d ever seen. Of course, Dale was probably very weak compared to the other NFL players.
So, a life long obsession of if Dale is X……….Nitchke must be Z…wholly Molly…began..Dale is X…….Butkis is Z………Dale is X…..Too Tall Jones is Z……..Dale is X…….Jared Allen is Z Even to this day find myself wondering just how big and strong NFL players are, based on my Dale formula.
I wish I could’ve developed a formula for women based on Raquel Welsh.
Pirates fan, and Bibby was great for us. “Nondescript” is a little mean. Not a Hall-of-Famer, but a good pitcher on some good teams.
#28 – I read “Seasons in Hell” (never a truer title for a Rangers fan), and was wondering if anyone would make a reference to Big Jim’s johnson.
Pitchers and catchers have reported. Guess it’s time for me to dig out some of the baseball books and start re-reading them.