It's a small comfort, but there's at least a little dignity in losing to Lugar as opposed to Dan Quayle like he did in OTL.
Very much this. Richard Lugar is a substantive, formidable opponent. He took Bayh to the limit in a Democratic wave year IOTL!1974. A close loss to him is a hard slog against a mighty foe with honor in it. Not getting ganked by some childish Stepford Bill Mumy lookalike who thinks he's Robert Redford and can't spell the names of root vegetables.
Bob Gibson deserves all the praise and respect anyone can give and then some. He was so good in 1968 that MLB lowered the height of the mound in 1969. Gibson was so good they literally had to move the earth itself to give mere mortals a chance hitting against him.
The king.
"The thing about Bob was, he pitched better angry"