Former Pirate Jim Bibby passes away at 65
Bibby pitched for the Pirates from 78-83 (missing 82)...going 50-32 with a 3,53 ERA. He made the All-Star team and finished 3rd in the NL Cy Young voting in 1980.
over 2 years ago
Thunder
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Bummer. He was a huge guy and a good pitcher, but the thing I remember most about him was his sweating. When he pitched on a hot summer day on the carpet at Three Rivers, the sweat would literally fall off the front of his cap bill like a waterfall. He was always getting into trouble and working out of it, too…it seemed like he never had an easy inning.
RIP.
Very sad. He was on the first Pirate team that I ever lived-and-died-with as a nine-year-old, the ‘83 Bucs. He wasn’t very effective that year, but I later found out a) that he had been pretty good not too long before and b) that he was, by all indications, a really good guy. When I went to a few games at Lynchburg after moving to Charlottesville last summer, I learned that he occasionally came out to the ballpark, and I hoped to meet him. RIP.
SI had a nice article about the Bibby brothers in March ’81:
Drag.....
Gotta say though, I dig that pic of him; because that is what I remember, he always seemed happy just to be out there playing. Is that a Hillcats cap he’s wearing? I think he was a coach there for a year or two.
RIP.
"I choose to gamble with my life
Twice the risk, four times the prize
Nothing knocks me over"
That's weird
Just the other day I was thinking, “Wonder whatever happened to jimbibbysweat?”
Did you work with him when you had the Pirates beat?
by Traco Bucco on Feb 17, 2010 12:13 AM EST up reply actions
I do not know
who he is. (The late) Charlie Feeney was the PG beat guy at the time and Russ … damn, can’t remember his last name … was the primary Press guy.
Just wanted to add
that it was a nearly impossible beat to cover with Feeney there. He knew everybody and everything (with one notable exception*). He wasn’t a very colorful writer, though, so you could outdo him there. It was your only hope.
*—One day a situation arose in the ninth inning of a game where if Tanner had the option he would have sent lefty Hebner up to pinch hit. Instead he sent up a right-hander who grounded out or something and the Pirates lost.
I had seen Hebner in the clubhouse before the game. It hadn’t registered at the time that he was in street clothes. So after the game in Tanner’s office, I asked if there was something wrong with Hebner.
Tanner’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you ask?”
“Because if he’s OK he would have pinch hit in the ninth.”
Tanner said, “Yeah, I was gonna get him out of a fuckin’ sick bed.”
I said, “I didn’t know he was sick.”
Tanner said, “Then you must not be doing your fuckin’ job.”
There was dead silence now, and I wanted to crawl into a hole. Finally somebody asked another question and the interview went on.
A couple minutes later, Feeney came in. Don’t know where he’d been but he’d missed that whole exchange. When he got a chance to ask a question, Feeney said:
“Chuck, was something wrong with Hebner?”
Tanner proceeded to politely tell Charlie that Hebner had come to the park ill and was given the day off.
I said, “You YELLED at me when I asked that!”
By now, of course, everyone is trying really hard (even me) not to bust out laughing, and the tension was gone.
No—I was curious about your interaction with Mr. Bibby when you covered the team. It looks like the shoulder injury in ’81 derailed what had been an impressive late-blooming career (ERA+ of 105-145 between age 30-36, with the 145 coming at age 36 in ’81).
RIP Jim Bibby
Didn’t know he had pitched a no-hitter. Also, further down the page was an interesting article about Terry Bradshaw, written by the professor, John Clayton.
Memorial for Jim. Please, feel free to express your thoughts
by Giancarlo Frison on Feb 17, 2010 1:36 PM EST reply actions
joe posnanski
as always, has a good article.
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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