It started when St. Louis Cardinals legend Bob Gibson reached out to talk to the young Jack Flaherty. He was making strides as a rookie for the Cardinals, and it impressed Gibson enough to prompt him to take Flaherty under his wing in a sense. A relationship blossomed, and Gibson left his email and phone number in Flaherty’s locker last season.
“I had maybe talked to him for 5 minutes the previous year,” Flaherty recalled on the Jim Rome Show in August. Gibson had originally reached out to try and meet Flaherty, and Flaherty knew this was a chance that he simply couldn’t miss.