He set basketball scoring records at Creighton. He hit 24 home runs and won nine Gold Gloves. He played for the Harlem Globetrotters. He won more games than any St. Louis Cardinals pitcher. He struck out more batters in a World Series game than anyone ever did. To borrow an overused phrase that in this case actually fits, he changed the game.
But when I think of the massively full life and career of Bob Gibson, I think first of 1968. It is not the 1.12 ERA that best defines him, nor the 17 strikeouts in World Series Game 1 against a Detroit Tigers team that never saw anything like him.