ST. LOUIS — By almost any account, Stan Musial was considered the greatest Cardinals player. By the same accounts, Bob Gibson, who died at age 84 Friday night in Omaha, Neb., under hospice care after fighting pancreatic cancer for more than a year, was considered the franchise’s greatest pitcher.

Gibson was the Cardinals’ second National Baseball Hall of Famer to die in the past month. His longtime teammate, Lou Brock, died at age 81 on Sept. 6. Gibson’s death came on the 52nd anniversary of perhaps his greatest game, a record 17-strikeout performance in Game 1 of the 1968 World Series.

Gibson, like Musial a rarity who played his entire career (1959-75) with the Cardinals, set club records for games won at 251 and complete games at a staggering 255, let alone a franchise-best 56 shutouts, strikeouts (3,117) and innings pitched at 3,884.

But, when he was young, there was little to suggest Gibson would achieve what he achieved. His father died before he was born and his mother, Victoria, worked in a laundry to raise her seven children. Gibson’s early years were filled with medical troubles — rickets, pneumonia, asthma, hay fever and a heart problem.

Despite all the illnesses, Gibson became an all-round athlete, starring in baseball, basketball and track in high school in Omaha. He then played baseball and basketball for Creighton University before becoming a Harlem Globetrotter for one year. After going a combined 6-11 for his first two seasons with the Cardinals, he put together 14 straight seasons of double-figure wins.

Gibson had five 20-win seasons, two with 19 victories and another of 18. He was so good in 1968 that baseball had to change its rules. Gibson compiled a modern-day best earned run average of 1.12 while winning 22 games and throwing 13 shutouts to lead a parade of pitching dominance in baseball and, for 1969, the height of the mound was lowered by 33 percent, from 15 inches to 10.

This didn’t seem to make a whole lot of difference, though to the hard-throwing right-hander, who was 20-13 with a 2.18 ERA in 1969 while striking out 269 hitters.

He had leapt to the national forefront in 1964 when he worked five times, 40 innings’ worth, in a 14-day span, four of them starts, as he helped the Cardinals win the National League pennant and then starred as the Cardinals beat the New York Yankees in the World Series, the Cardinals’ first Series crown since 1946.