Episode 12: 1964 St. Louis Cardinals

In early September 1964 three baseball fans travel from Omaha to St. Louis to see their favorite team, the St. Louis Cardinals.

Two of them are Josh Gibson and Josh Gibson Jr.  the older brother and nephew of Bob Gibson, the Cardinals ace right-hander. 

 The third member of the group is 13-year-old Delmar Givehand.  Delmar is a fan of the Cardinals and of Bob Gibson, because like Gibson he grew up in north Omaha, the predominantly black neighborhood that spawned the city’s greatest athletes.

Delmar’s Labor Day weekend journey to St. Louis is about to become an adventure of a lifetime. He will dine with Bob Gibson, and watch the Cardinals ignite a run to a legendary pennant and world championship.

He will also get a glimpse into the love between the two brothers — Josh and Bob — that shaped a Hall of Fame career.

A couple of years later Delmar became a classmate of mine at Omaha Central High School, and a lifelong friend. This episode owes to Delmar’s excellent memory.

It also owes to the fine history from author Dirk Chatelain, “24th and Glory: The Intersection of Civil Rights and Omaha’s Greatest Generation of Athletes”.

Footnote: I omitted Bill White and Ray Sadecki from my list of “talented players” who led the 1964 Cardinals. It was an inadvertent oversight. Both were key contributors.

Delmar Givehand was a 1969 graduate of Omaha Central High School.

Leroy “Josh” Gibson was the older brother, and surrogate father, of Hall of Famer Bob Gibson.

The 1964 world champion St. Louis Cardinals

Bob Gibson returned to his childhood neighborhood in north Omaha to celebrate after the Cardinals won Game 7 of the 1964 World Series.