His legendary death stare wasn’t intimidation tactics, it was poor eyesight and squinting, so bad his catcher painted his fingernails white with correction fluid. This episode looks past the myth to a man born in Omaha who overcame rickets, asthma, and respiratory disease to become one of the most dominant pitchers the game has seen.

We trace his path from a basketball scholarship at Creighton and a stint with the Harlem Globetrotters to the St. Louis Cardinals, where he pushed back against segregated spring training housing years before the Civil Rights Act. On the mound he pitched on a fractured fibula, posted a 1.12 ERA in 1968, and forced the league to lower the pitcher’s mound.

• Being rejected by Indiana over a stated racial quota
• Pitching to three more batters on a broken leg
• The Year of the Pitcher and 17 World Series strikeouts
• Why the league changed the field’s geometry to slow him
• His no-fraternizing intensity and clashes with rivals