FanHouse Bob Gibson

During Tuesday night's All-Star broadcast, I'd be willing to bet almost anything that at some point Tim McCarver will bring up his old battery-mate Bob Gibson as an example of the good ol' days in baseball, when players didn't take steroids and there were no pitch counts.

Gibson has certainly been making the rounds with the All-Star Game in St. Louis this year. Tuesday morning he did a spot with ESPN Radio's Mike and Mike, and the inevitable subject of steroids in baseball came up. In an incredibly honest answer, Gibson told the hosts that baseball players have been cheating for years and if it were up to him, he wouldn't keep known steroid users out of the Hall of Fame. A longer version of his quote is after the jump .

Fletch already mentioned it in the Starting Five this morning, but on Monday night in Kansas City Zack Greinke was once again absolutely dominant in going the distance and pitching a shutout against the White Sox. It was the type of pitching performance that you couldn't help but enjoy watching, even if you happened to be pulling for the other team, as it was an absolute clinic performed with a surgeon's precision.

White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said afterward that it was the best performance he'd seen from a major league pitcher in a long time, and I have to agree. I've seen Greinke make three starts this season -- twice on television, and once in person -- and I'm yet to see him surrender a run. However, I did see him strike out 27 batters while only walking three. It's the type of dominance I haven't seen from a pitcher since Pedro Martinez's amazing run from 1999-2002.

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It's all too easy in the wake of Alex Rodriguez's admission that he used performance-enhancing drugs to throw up our hands and say the numbers mean nothing. If you listen to the echo chamber of hysterical pundits, this is the dawn of a new age of baseball nihilism.

I always knew Denny McLain was big in 1968, but I guess I didn't know how big. As if winning 31 games, leading the Tigers to a World Series title and earning every first-place vote for the American League MVP and Cy Young awards wasn't enough, he also appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show performing "The Girl from Ipanema" on the organ.

Oh, and did I mention that he was joined by Bob Gibson, the reigning MVP and Cy Young from the National League, in his encore?

No, really.



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