Bob Gibson's on the phone. He's ready to talk baseball, never mind that he's 10 minutes early. He always liked to keep the game moving and other players on their toes.

Not only the Cardinals' greatest pitcher, Gibson — whose heat came not just from his arm but his fierce, fabled glare — is one of the greatest pitchers in the history of baseball.

His "violent delivery" and the "mileage" he got out of looking angry are two things he discusses in his new book with Reggie Jackson, "Sixty Feet, Six Inches."

So, of course the famous stare is going to be a talking point. And it turns out that Gibson claims (OK, 34 years after retirement) that he wasn't always trying to intimidate a batter.

"I got a reputation as being all kinds of ogres and what have you, when (intimidation) was the last thing on my mind," he says from his home in Omaha, Neb.

Fans assumed he wanted to get a psychological edge on a hitter.

"I just wanted to get the guy out," Gibson says.

Sometimes, he reveals, he was actually squinting at the catcher's fingers. Gibson wore glasses off the field. Willie Mays, startled by the glasses, once told him, "Man, you're gonna kill somebody out there!"

"I couldn't see the sign the catcher was giving me," Gibson says now. "I couldn't see his fingers. We had to stop doing the finger thing and go to flaps, where he would raise his hand up. … That I saw pretty well."

So now he tells us?

"Sixty Feet, Six Inches" won't dissolve the legend Gibson built over 17 years of pitching for the Cards. From 1959 to 1975, he won two Cy Young awards and compiled a lifetime ERA of 2.91 and 3,117 strikeouts. Between racking up great numbers and displaying legendary stamina and grit (he once pitched with a broken leg to three batters), Gibson intimidated hundreds of ballplayers.

But maybe St. Louisans won't be afraid to meet his eyes when he signs his book here Tuesday, the day it goes on sale (see accompanying box for details).

For "Sixty Feet, Six Inches," publisher Doubleday suggested Gibson talk to another Hall of Famer, a hitter, about the sport. Writer Lonnie Wheeler, who had collaborated on Gibson's autobiography, would talk to both together and separately.

Gibson suggested Reggie Jackson, who also was well-known for rising to the occasion when Big Show pressure came in October.

In his introduction to the book, Wheeler says that he doesn't want to blow Gibson's cover but that the "genius of gamesmanship" has reached a "lengthy period of accommodation and congeniality."

Wheeler calls Jackson a media-friendly pioneer in the area of self-marketing. Like Gibson, Jackson is a two-time World Series MVP. When Mr. October retired in 1987, he'd hit 563 home runs. He describes what he thought about while in the batter's box — 60 feet, 6 inches from the pitcher's mound.

Both confident, candid men offer fascinating recollections, yet it's a bit of an insider's book with plenty of give-and-take about things like the exact part of home plate where they liked to see the ball.

GIBSON OPENS UP

St. Louis is a city of insiders watching a season of great pitching, so many will probably eat up these lines:

"If I wanted to plunk a batter, I would throw at his ribs, just slightly behind him. Batters usually have a tendency to step back a little bit when they see the ball coming their way. … In my view, when batters get hit in the head, it's basically their fault. … The head should be the easiest thing to move."

Or this:

"If I were pitching today, I'd still wind up and fly around. Personally, I'd rather have the batter look for the ball."

Or even this:

"The Cardinals were an uncommonly close and interesting group of guys. There wasn't the drama that Reggie dealt with in the Yankee clubhouse. People like (Tim) McCarver and Curt Flood and Bill White were great friends of mine, and I thought the world of them. ...

"Lou Brock and Curt Flood got hit all the time, so I'd have no choice but to retaliate. The fact is, I hated it."

Gibson, whose nickname was Hoot after a TV cowboy, mentions something you don't see even in the most detail- and statistic-heavy sports talk. He says a couple of his fingers were, oddly, the same length and that may have affected the movement of the ball.

But minutiae don't always rule. Gibson recounts how first baseman Bill White was angered by Jim Crow customs in St. Petersburg, Fla., where they trained in the spring. After August Busch arranged to buy a motel so all players could stay together, "people would drive by just to see all these black and white guys swimming and grilling steaks together."

At 73, he's content to live in Omaha with his wife, Wendy. Asked why he's lived there his whole life, Gibson jokes, "Where would you like me to go?"

But then he notes that in 1959, broadcaster Harry Caray announced at a Cardinal home game that some ballplayers were looking for places to live. An offer of an apartment came in, but when Gibson went to look at it he was told there was nothing left. He decided it wasn't worth the trouble to track down a place in a nice neighborhood that would welcome blacks.

"They have some problems in Omaha, but I know what they are and I know who they are," he says. "So I'm going to stay right here. It's different now. St. Louis is a wonderful place. But I've been here all my life, there's no reason to pull up stakes."

Besides he prefers cool weather, never liking St. Louis' humid summers.

TODAY'S GAME

Baseball hasn't changed so much since Gibson retired, he says. But what's changed is people's attitudes.

"Younger people have a sense of entitlement," he says. "In sports, also, young people think they invented the game. They are not really interested in what happened, what came before. … That's not just the athlete, that's the average person."

Ballplayers are earning a lot of money, but some aren't as good as they think they are, he says.

Gibson's competitive attitude didn't change over the years. He gained smarts and a bit more confidence, he says.

As a special adviser to the Cardinals, he usually watches the team's games on TV.

"The pitchers are doing really, really well, and they've done a tremendous job with the hitting," Gibson says. "When they started off the season, it was really iffy. (Albert) Pujols never did have anybody hitting behind him that would scare the other team. Now they have three guys in the middle of the lineup capable of hitting the ball out of the park."

That's everybody's wish, he says. Three guys in the middle of the lineup who can belt the ball.

"Pitchers aren't afraid of single-base hitters."

He should know.