Whose most successful single was a cover of a song written by a retired baseball pitcher?
Bob Gibson Robert Gibson (born November 9, 1935) is a retired American baseball pitcher who played 17 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the St. Louis Cardinals (1959–75). Nicknamed "Gibby" and "Hoot", Gibson tallied 251 wins, 3,117 strikeouts, and a 2.91 earned run average (ERA) during his career. A nine-time All-Star and two-time World Series champion, he won two Cy Young Awards and the 1968 National League (NL) Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award. In 1981, he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. The Cardinals retired his uniform number 45 in September 1975 and inducted him into the team Hall of Fame in 2014.
Lean on Me (song) "Lean on Me" is a song written and recorded by African American singer-songwriter Bill Withers. It was released in April 1972 as the first single from his second album, "Still Bill". It was his first and only number one single on both the soul singles and the "Billboard" Hot 100. "Billboard" ranked it as the No. 7 song of 1972. It is ranked number 208 on "Rolling Stone"' s list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". Numerous cover versions have been recorded, and it is one of only nine songs to have reached No. 1 in the US Singles Charts with versions recorded by two different artists.