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John Russell Gibson
Boston Red Sox
Catcher
Born: May 6, 1939, Fall River, MA
Signed: Signed by the Boston Red Sox as an amateur free agent, June 1957
Major League Teams: Boston Red Sox 1967-1969; San Francisco Giants 1970-1972
World Series Appearances: Boston Red Sox 1967
Died: July 27, 2008, Swansea, MA (age 69)
Catcher Russ Gibson spent nine seasons in Boston's minor league system before finally joining the big league club at the start of the 1967 season. He made his major league debut on April 14, 1967 at Yankee Stadium, catching fellow rookie Billy Rohr. Rohr took a no-hitter into the ninth inning, recording the first two outs before Elston Howard singled to end the bid. Gibson will be forever linked to the Impossible Dreamer Red Sox club of 1967, who improbably won the American League pennant, but fell in seven games to the Cardinals in the World Series. Gibson was hitless in two at-bats in his Game 1 start.
His best season came in 1969 when he batted .251 in 85 games, with three home runs and 27 RBIs. He was sold to the Giants prior to the 1970 season with the Red Sox opting to use Jerry Moses (#476) and Tom Satriano (#78) as their catching tandem. Gibson played sparingly in parts of three seasons with the Giants, seeing his last big league action in September 1972. Overall he appeared in 264 games, bating .228 with 181 hits, eight home runs and 78 RBIs.
Died: July 27, 2008, Swansea, MA (age 69)
Catcher Russ Gibson spent nine seasons in Boston's minor league system before finally joining the big league club at the start of the 1967 season. He made his major league debut on April 14, 1967 at Yankee Stadium, catching fellow rookie Billy Rohr. Rohr took a no-hitter into the ninth inning, recording the first two outs before Elston Howard singled to end the bid. Gibson will be forever linked to the Impossible Dreamer Red Sox club of 1967, who improbably won the American League pennant, but fell in seven games to the Cardinals in the World Series. Gibson was hitless in two at-bats in his Game 1 start.
His best season came in 1969 when he batted .251 in 85 games, with three home runs and 27 RBIs. He was sold to the Giants prior to the 1970 season with the Red Sox opting to use Jerry Moses (#476) and Tom Satriano (#78) as their catching tandem. Gibson played sparingly in parts of three seasons with the Giants, seeing his last big league action in September 1972. Overall he appeared in 264 games, bating .228 with 181 hits, eight home runs and 78 RBIs.
March 12, 2023 from The Philly Show (Uncle Dick's Cards)
In mid-March, Doug and I attended the Philadelphia Sports Collectors Show, held within the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Oaks, Pennsylvania. My main focus for this show was accumulating as many 1969 Topps commons as possible, which I did by adding a grand total of 193 cards to our set. That's almost 30% of the entire set added in one enjoyable afternoon. I wrote a full summary of the show in a post over at The Phillies Room, found here.
This is the 57th of the 193 commons and semi-stars purchased, pulled and stacked from the first two neon green binders housing 1969 Topps cards at the multi-table spread of Uncle Dick's Cards from Babylon, New York. My method was simple - I pulled up a chair, found a card I needed, picked the best of the group from the binder page and set it aside. After each 100 cards, I'd ask the dealer to tell me how much damage I had done so far. With a budget in mind, I kept going twice, continuing after card #100 and card #200, and stopping at card #298. The final amount due was 17% off the sticker price for the pile of 193 cards, with this card costing less than a dollar.
The Card / Red Sox Team Set / Accuracy Index +1
Topps uses the exact same photo as Gibson's 1968 Topps here, just cropping it a little tighter. The back of the card comments on Gibson taking over regular catching duties in 1968, and while he did start 65 games, Howard, acquired by the Red Sox from the Yankees mid-way through the 1967 season, made 62 starts. The cartoon celebrating Gibson throwing out Bert Campaneris (#495) twice in one game seems fairly random.
Accuracy Index: Gibson's uniform is correct (+5), but we've seen this photo before (-4).
1969 Season
Gibson was the opening day catcher for the Red Sox, and he'd make 78 starts overall behind the plate. Satriano with 37 games and Moses with 32 games also saw significant playing time with rookie Carlton Fisk making his major league debut and first start on September 18th. It was Fisk's only start of the season, and he'd have to wait until 1972 before taking over the position for good.
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First Mainstream Card: 1967 Topps #547
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (6): 1967-1972
Most Recent Mainstream Card: 1972 Topps #643
Total Non-Parallel Baseball Cards: 30 in the Beckett online database as of 9/23/23.
Sources:
Baseball Reference / SABR / Wikipedia
Beckett Database / The Trading Card Database
#88 Rich Nye - Chicago Cubs / #90 Jerry Koosman - New York Mets
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