In July 2017, my wife, Nancy, and I were having a late lunch on the stately veranda at the Otesaga Resort Hotel in Cooperstown, N.Y. We were attending baseball’s Hall of Fame weekend.

I looked across the mostly-empty veranda and spotted Bob Gibson seated at another table.

“Oh my God, it’s Bob Gibson,” I whispered to Nancy, filling her in on the basic details of how Gibson became one of my boyhood heroes.

She prodded me to introduce myself and get my photo taken with Gibson. I was nervous. I knew about his reputation as a fiercely private man and someone who’d had a tempestuous relationship with reporters.

I don’t think Gibson was thrilled that I interrupted his lunch, and he bristled a little bit when I draped my arm over his shoulder for the snapshot. But he obliged my request and provided me with a lasting memory.

He remained, at age 81, a striking, intimidating man.

Which was perfectly fitting, because he was one of the most dominant, aggressive pitchers of all time. He was baseball’s ultimate competitor.

“For my money, the most intimidating, arrogant pitcher ever to kick up dirt on a mound is Bob Gibson,” Tim McCarver, the Cardinals’ catcher and a longtime broadcaster, recalled in his 1987 memoir, “Oh, Baby, I Love It!”

“If you ever saw Gibson work,” McCarver wrote, “you’d never forget his style: his cap pulled down low over his eyes, the ball gripped — almost mashed — behind his right hip, the eyes smoldering at each batter almost accusingly.”

Gibson died Friday at age 84 after battling pancreatic cancer.

When I was a little leaguer, Gibson was winning baseball games and World Series for the St. Louis Cardinals. My dad, Dusty, was a Cardinals fan, so, of course, I was a Cardinals fan.

There was something about Gibson’s almost-violent, right-handed delivery that struck a chord with me. Unlike some other pitchers of the late 1960s, Gibson looked like an athlete. He was a nine-time Gold Glove winner, even though his sweeping follow-through drove him to the first-base side of the mound. He was a good hitter who twice hit five home runs in a season and batted .303 in 1970.

He worked quickly and deliberately. As legendary broadcaster Vin Scully put it, “Gibson pitches as though he’s double-parked.”

Gibson threw a fastball, hard slider, and an occasional curveball and he was never better than in Game 1 of the 1968 World Series when he struck out 17 Detroit Tigers. I was awestruck. When he lost Game 7, I was crushed.

He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1981 in his first year of eligibility. His statistics are incredible. He won at least 20 games five times, won 215 career games, and struck out 3,117 batters. He pitched 255 complete games and threw 56 shutouts.

Gibson won two Cy Young Awards and was named the National League MVP in 1968 when he went 22-9, with 13 shutouts while posting an astonishing 1.12 ERA. After the so-called “Year of the Pitcher,” baseball lowered the mound from 15 to 10 inches the next season.

Gibson was not happy, but he still dominated. He was 20-13 with a 2.18 ERA in 1969 while pitching 314 innings, nine more than his previous season and striking out 269 hitters, one more than he had in 1968.

Legend is a word that’s tossed around far too easily in sports, but Gibson earned the title. I’m sure glad Nancy coaxed me to make the walk across that veranda.