Sunday School: Forgotten Faces of Flushing #60: Bob Gibson the Man who Taught the Mets Attitude

Welcome back to Sunday School: Forgotten Faces of Flushing, our weekly rummage through the Mets’ attic, where we brush the dust off the bubble gum cards, flip through curling yearbooks, and rediscover the names that once made you stop mid knish and say, “Hold on… he was a Met, right?”

Last week we explored the day the fastest man on Earth showed up in camp to teach the Mets how to run. This week we stay in the same aisle of baseball oddities, only instead of Olympic speed we deal in competitive fire, mound presence, and the subtle art of looking at a hitter as if you’ve already borrowed his lunch money.

Because today’s Forgotten Face was not a Met by trade. He was something far more intimidating.

Bob Gibson.

Yes, that Bob Gibson.

And class is officially in session.

By the time 1981 rolled around, the Mets were still searching for traction somewhere between rebuilding plan and existential shrug. The losses had piled up. The swagger had not. So manager Joe Torre — who knew a thing or two about Gibson from their days as teammates in St. Louis — decided the club didn’t just need instruction. It needed edge.

Enter the Hall of Famer, hired in what may be the most Mets job title ever created: attitude coach.

Technically, paperwork listed him as an assistant pitching coach. In reality, Torre spelled it out plainly at the time. As quoted by Tim Britton in a 2020 article for The Athletic, Torre explained:

“He’s my attitude coach. That’s his job here: to teach the Mets’ pitchers to be intimidating.”

Which is a bit like hiring Beethoven to show up twice a week and hum.

Gibson’s route back to baseball had not been linear. After retiring in 1975 he stepped away from the game, working in Omaha banking and running a restaurant that bore his name. The quiet life did not stick. He later admitted, again quoted in Britton’s reporting:

“I don’t miss playing… I’ve missed the life — the traveling, the talking baseball with people who know baseball.”

He even joked that restaurant patrons discussing the 1968 World Series didn’t exactly satisfy the craving.

“People come into my restaurant here and talk baseball, but they really don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.”

St. Louis never followed through on vague employment conversations after his playing days. Torre, however, opened the door. And so Gibson came to Queens, charged not with fixing mechanics but with reshaping mindsets.

Former Mets starter Ed Lynch summarized the approach in Britton’s piece:

“That was perfect… because he never talked about mechanics or anything like that — ever. It was all about your attitude on the mound.”

Gibson was rarely the guy leaning over bullpens diagramming grip pressure. Pitching coach Rube Walker handled the technical side. Gibson handled everything happening north of the shoulders.

Reliever Neil Allen recalled:

“Gibby wouldn’t be in the bullpens, hardly ever… Gibby took the mentality part of it: Why’d you throw that pitch there? And we’d talk about it… well, I wouldn’t say happy medium, because he usually won.”

And his philosophy was simple, direct, and about as subtle as a brushback fastball. Own the inside part of the plate. Protect teammates. Do not treat competition like a social mixer.

As Lynch remembered:

“You’ve got to put one under somebody’s hat.”

For young pitchers, it could be intimidating. Sometimes unpleasant. Often unforgettable.

This was also the year Gibson entered Cooperstown, adding Hall of Fame inductee to his Mets résumé line that already read something like mythological enforcer. His presence did not transform the standings. The 1981 Mets still struggled, finishing 41–62 in a strike shortened season. Torre and his entire staff were dismissed afterward, Gibson included.

The impact, however, lingered in quieter ways.

Lynch later reflected:

“The message that I took from Bob Gibson was that every time you went on that mound it was like war… It made me a better pitcher. Bob made me a better pitcher.”

Allen carried similar lessons forward, remembering a tunnel lecture after surrendering a two strike hit that permanently sharpened his focus.

“I don’t think I gave up an 0 2 hit the rest of the year… ‘You got 0 2, what would Gibby say?’”

That is not coaching you diagram on a clipboard. That is something closer to competitive osmosis.

When the Mets cleaned house after the season, Gibson’s Queens chapter ended as abruptly as it began. He explored managing possibilities with the Louisville Cardinals organization, though he later suggested that path was quietly blocked by St. Louis leadership for reasons never made clear to him. Years later, in 1990, he briefly surfaced in conversations with investors — including Donald Trump — about launching a rival baseball league, an idea that faded once the economic reality of competing with Major League Baseball’s expanding television revenues became obvious.

Baseball careers twist in strange directions. Even for legends.

So yes, Bob Gibson coached the Mets.

Not as pitching savior.

Not as tactical guru.

But as something harder to quantify — a walking embodiment of competitive standard, brought in to raise the temperature in a clubhouse that needed heat.

His tenure lasted one season. His job title sounded invented. His lessons stuck.

And somewhere in the long and colorful lineage of Mets instruction, between fungoes and lineup cards, sits the image of one of the fiercest pitchers who ever lived asking young arms a simple question:

Why did you throw that pitch?

Which is the sort of question that echoes long after the uniform goes back in the attic.

And before you close the textbooks and head out of class, come join the conversation in our Facebook group. Sunday School works best when Mets fans start flipping through the attic together — remembering the players, the odd stories, and the “wait… he was a Met?” moments that make this franchise what it is. Bring your memories, your opinions, and the forgotten names you think belong in a future lesson. Around here, class participation is strongly encouraged.