I remember when Gibson was a rookie with the Tigers, some reporter asked him about the differences between playing baseball and football (Gibson was a big deal WR at Mich. St., IIRC). And, talking about baseball, Gibson said, "I can't believe how stupid the fans are."
Yeah .... fuck you, Kirk.
He's the complete asshole. I vividly remember him hitting that home-run. The dodgers were my second favorite team because I grew up in San Antonio and my family would go to the bulk of the S.A. Dodgers/Missions games, so I knew all the players. I was 10 years old "asleep" in my bed listening to the world series game on the radio. The sleep function turned the radio off pretty much as Eckersley was delivering the fateful pitch. Before I could get the radio back on I heard my dad yelling "YES!" from the living room. I ran from my bedroom, barely hitting any of the steps on the stairs and my dad saw me, gave me a huge high five and a big hug, and we sat watching the replay and the post-game together.
In the spring of '89, my father, grandfather and older brother were on a spring training/disneyland trip and were wandering around Dodgertown in Vero Beach a couple of hours before the game. Kids and fans were mobbing everyone in a Dodgers uniform for autorgraphs, but it was mostly minor league players and also-rans. I recognized most of them from when they spent time in San Antonio. I remember laughing at a particularly robust mob surrounding Tracy Woodson, who had called my brother a "pecker-head" at a baseball camp the previous summer. It was the first time I ever heard that term. I called my brother a pecker-head in Woodson's honor, and chuckled off to check out the batting cages. Right then, I noticed Kirk Gibson, a towel around his shoulders covering the back of his jersey, walking by himself from the cages and dragging his bat along the ground behind him like a caveman dragging a club. I ran up to him, absolutely nobody around us, and quietly held up the ball that I had been using for autographs. "Mr. Gibson, will you please sign my ball?" "Not now kid," he growled and shoved me in the chest, knocking me straight down to the ground. I looked up, shocked, wiping dirt from my face in time to see him look back over his shoulder and laugh at me.
So fuck that guy. Whenever I ran across his baseball card after that, I burned it. I even had my friends bring me their Kirk Gibson cards so I could torch that fucker in the most meaningful way I could. One day at school, we got together four or five cards and set them on fire behind the science building. A teacher caught us and I took the rap, going straight to the principals office. The principal called my dad at work to tell him that I was being suspended for "attempting to commit arson." My dad, justifiably upset, asked what I had set fire to. The principal said, "oh, it looks like some kids' baseball cards. No real damage done." My dad asked, "Were they Kirk Gibson cards?" When that was confirmed my dad told the principal to put me back in class and hung up the phone. That was the end of my suspension.
Most people who have known me through the years, and anyone who has ever been in the room with me when that fucking replay of him pumping his fist rounding second comes on the TV, knows that story. One of my good friends in college later got a job with NPR. He was doing a story about some article about which celebrities were the most and least autograph friendly, and at the end of the segment tossed in my Kirk Gibson anecdote. He received dozens upon dozens of emails from other people who had similar experiences with Kirk Gibson as a kid and felt relieved and justified that Kirk Gibson was an asshole to so many others. I think someone had even set up a web site soliciting stories of Gibson's mistreatment of young fans, but I can't seem to find it now. Years after that, I was introduced to a friend of Batgirl's who had a similar story. When he was a kid his mom took him to some charity event with Dodgers players. He had a bat that he was getting signed by the players there. He walked up to Gibson who said, "kid, if you ask me to sign that bat I'm going to break it over your fucking head."
Fuck you, Kirk.
