Dr. Doug Feldmann, author of Gibson’s Last Stand: The Rise, Fall, and Near Misses of the St. Louis Cardinals, remembers the first and only time he saw Bob Gibson pitch. It was 1974. Gibson was 38 years old, Feldmann was four.

“This Gibson guy is horrible,” Feldmann remembers telling father on the car ride home after the game.

Feldmann’s dad, who played professional baseball, quickly explained where Gibson was in his career. Doug had missed the good stuff; like 1968 when Gibson started 34 games, pitching 304 innings, including 28 complete games to finish 22-9 with a season ERA of 1.12.

Feldmann never saw Gibson pitch in his prime, which he compiled five 20-win seasons and seven seasons where he pitched 20 or more complete games. By the time Doug set eyes on the Hall of Fame pitcher, his skills had diminished setting the stage for Feldmann’s book.

As you will hear in the latest edition of Voices: A Sports Podcast, Feldmann talks about the least memorable, less chronicled days of Gibson’s otherwise storied career – 1968-1975. While Gibson remained on top of his game through 1973, age and the events surrounding him were beginning to catch up with him.

As the publisher describes, from 1968-1975 Bob Gibson struggled to maintain his pitching excellence at the end of his career, changes in American culture ultimately changed the St. Louis Cardinals and the business and pastime of baseball itself … Gibson mourned the end of the Golden Era of baseball and believed that the changes in the game would be partially blamed on him, as his pitching success caused team owners to believe that cash-paying customers only wanted base hits and home runs. Yet, he contended, the shrinking of the strike zone, the lowering of the mound, and the softening of the traditional rancor between the hitter and pitcher forever changed the role of the pitcher in the game and created a more politically correct version of the sport.

You can listen to Dr. Feldmann reflect on Gibson’s later years in this edition of Voices …

Gibson’s Last Stand: The Rise, Fall, and Near Misses of the St. Louis Cardinals is available at all major booksellers. You can purchase the book on Amazon.com here.