We Would Have Played for Nothing: Baseball Stars of the 1950s and 1960s Talk About the Game They Loved (Baseball Oral...

Brooks Robinson

Jim Murray of the Los Angeles Times couldn't have been more prescient when he once wrote, "In the future, Brooks Robinson will be the standard every third baseman will be measured by."

Robinson was a fixture at third base for the Baltimore Orioles for twenty-three seasons (1955-77), where he not only won fans but also sixteen Gold Glove Awards for defensive excellence. Nicknamed "The Human Vacuum Cleaner," he set defensive career records for third basemen for games, putouts, assists, chances, double plays, and fielding percentage.

"The baseball park was no place for his performances. He should have played at Carnegie Hall," wrote Atlanta sportswriter Furman Bisher. Another writer, Red Smith of the New York Times, agreed, "When you see Brooks Robinson walk onto the field you know that nature designed him expressly to play third base."

Robinson's prowess with a glove was never more evident than in the 1970 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds, where he made a number of sparkling plays in front of a national audience in the five-game triumph.

"We lost the World Series because we made fundamental mistakes," said Reds manager Sparky Anderson. "We kept hitting the ball to Brooks." Reds player Pete Rose was equally impressed, stating, "That guy can field a ball with a pair of pliers." Longtime O's PA announcer Rex Barney may have stated it best during Robinson's 1970 Fall Classic heroics: "He's not at his locker yet, but four guys are over there interviewing his glove."

Robinson was more than a defensive stalwart, though, as he finished his career with 2,848 hits and 268 home runs (at the time of his retirement a record for AL third basemen). Robinson also won the 1964 AL MVP Award, when he set career highs in home runs (28), RBIs (118), and batting average (.317), and the 1970 World Series MVP Award, when he hit .429 with two home runs and six RBIs.

Robinson, who was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of fame in 1983, received glowing remarks from fellow Hall of Fame third baseman Pie Traynor, who was also known for his glove work: "I once thought of giving him some tips but dropped the idea. He's just the best there is."

My dad was a pretty good semipro player back in Little Rock, Arkansas. I ended up going to the same high school, playing on the same American Legion team that he did. He was a good player, and in fact, in 1937, I believe, or could have been '38, he played softball, fast pitch, for International Harvester, and they went to the world's championship in Soldier Field in Chicago. They got beat, 2-1, for the world's championship. He always encouraged me to play. I can remember throwing the ball around and shagging balls, and then when I got to be about eight or nine years old, I was a batboy for several of the teams that he played on. He was a fireman in Little Rock for over thirty years. That was my first love and only love as far as sports go.

I could always catch the ball, of course. When I got higher, professionally, hitting became a little tougher. It took me a while to get the hang of that. I was a good hitter in American Legion baseball, very average speed, very average arm, but the thing I had going for me was the fact that I could catch the ball. When I signed professionally in 1955, no one wanted to give me a lot of money. That was the time when if you got more than $4,000, you were a bonus player and had to go directly into the major leagues, and no one wanted to offer me a lot of money. I signed for $4,000, and that was my salary for the first year. But I think that benefited me, to go and play with guys my own speed instead of being in the major leagues for two years, which I saw stunt a lot of players' growth for that particular time. So I was fortunate in that respect.

I was ambidextrous to a certain point. I eat left-handed, write left-handed, play Ping-Pong and tennis and shoot left-handed, so from here down, I'm pretty well coordinated. But I can't throw left-handed at all. I do everything else left-handed, and I'm sure that helped me as far as being able to get the glove in the right spot and make the plays.

I was a big baseball fan. In the eighth grade, we had to write a booklet called My Vocation -- what do you want to do when you grow up? And I wrote it on becoming a professional baseball player. That was my dream, and I had some big decisions to make. I had some scholarships to college to play basketball, and I had to talk my mother and dad out of that to sign professionally. As I say, no one really wanted to give me a lot of money, but they wanted to sign me. I ended up signing with Baltimore through a good friend of my family named Lindsay Deal, a baseball player who played for Paul Richards when Paul managed the Atlanta Crackers. Lindsay's family went to church with my family. And so he wrote Paul Richards a letter saying, "Paul, there's a kid here who we think might be able to make the big league someday. Would you send someone in to scout him?" This was 1955, I guess, the second year the Orioles came to Baltimore. They were the old St. Louis Browns in '53 and then they moved to Baltimore. So Paul Richards took over, and he sent a couple of fellas to look at me. And I ended up signing with the Orioles because that was the quickest way to the major league. That's what he sold me on: we don't have any players, and you're going to get a chance to play early here in your career. Consequently, I got a chance to play when I was eighteen.

I think my mother and dad probably kept me on track better than anyone else -- that, and the fact that I played sports. When I played sports, I just knew that you didn't drink -- not that I didn't have a drink once in a while -- and you didn't smoke. I mean, that was really what sports were all about, and the only way you could compete and be at your best was to do the right thing and be in the best shape. But I think my parents, more than anyone else, were really the guiding light in my life. I had a brother who was five years younger than me. He was a football player; he went to the University of Arkansas and played football. We were into a little mischief, but I think overall we didn't give my mother and dad a lot of problems, simply because we were into sports and we knew that if we wanted to excel in sports, well, we had to do certain things and abide by certain rules. But my parents were very influential in keeping me that way, I think.

I played my first fifty games professionally at York, Pennsylvania, as a second baseman, and then George Staller, who was my manager, and Paul Richards felt in the long run third base might be my best position. Third base is a reflex position, whereas at second base you have to cover a lot more ground. They just saw me as a third baseman, thinking I might get a little stronger and learn to hit. And that was the best thing that ever happened to me, that move to third base.

York, Pennsylvania, was in a Class-B league. I did very well, there, then came back to Baltimore and got to play the last two weeks in 1955. The first game I played in was against the Washington Senators. I think Chuck Stobbs was pitching for the Senators. Anyway, I got two base hits, knocked in a big run. We won the game, and I can remember running back to the Southern Hotel and calling my mom and dad. I said, "Guess what, Mom? I just played my first big-league game, got two hits." I said, "Man, this is my cup of tea. I don't know why I was in the minor league." The next twenty times I went to bat, eighteen to be exact, I went 0-18. I struck out ten times out of those eighteen, and I learned a pretty good lesson right there. These guys are way ahead of me. I got a lot of more work in front of me to be an accomplished major-league baseball player.

After the '55 season was over, the Orioles sent thirteen players out of their organization, all not married, down to Colombia, South America. We played in Barranquilla and Cartagena. They had two teams in Barranquilla and two teams in Cartagena. I was eighteen years old, and I was in South America playing. We lived in a big, big house and had several maids who cooked for us. Tito Francona was there, and he went on to have a very fine major-league career. Also Wayne Causey, who played in the major leagues for a while. So we had a few guys who ended up making it to the majors. I played in South America in '55 and in '56. I came back, knew I was going to be in Double A, which was San Antonio in the Texas League. So I went to San Antonio that year, and after the season was over, I came back to Baltimore and finished the season.

In '57, I made the Oriole team. I was the starting third baseman opening day. In fact, that's when my relationship began with George Kell, another great baseball player, a third baseman, a Hall of Famer. George kind of took me under his wing and showed me the ropes, not only in baseball, but also off the field. I remember he took me to my first stage play in New York, George and his wife. He was kind of my mentor, I guess you could say. And it was his last year. He retired after that year. But opening day of '57, George played first and I played third against the Washington Senators in old Griffith Stadium. And then after that, let's see, about two weeks into the season, I hurt my knee. I had a knee operation. I was out two months, went down for a month, came back, and ended up going to Cuba to play winter baseball. That was really the best winter league at that particular time. So I spent the whole winter in Cuba playing on a team called Cienfuegos. And then in '58, I was back with the Orioles. I was there the whole year. I never really distinguished myself. I played in 145 games. I think I ended up hitting .238. And then I had an Army obligation. I was being drafted for two years, or I could go in the Arkansas National Guard for six months' active duty and five and a half years in the Reserve. So I went into the Arkansas National Guard. I went for six months' active duty, then I spent five and a half years in the National Guard. But anyway, I got out after serving, right when the season started in '59. I missed spr

Reader Reviews
I am very excited to discover this book of living oral history about a great era in the evolution of baseball, a time when there was exceptional talent on the field, and still a level of craftsmanship and relative purity to the sport. I just wanted toon the review that compares this book to The Boys of Summer as a classic benchmark of baseball writing. I would not dispute that comparison, but I think it is a little more to the point to compare this book (and its companion volume on the 30s and 40s) to the one that really pioneered the technique of compiling oral history from the older players--and that is The Glory of Their Times by Lawrence Ritter. This book, which I believe was published in about 1966, was the first I know of to use this technique and with wondrous results. Ritter hit the road with a tape recorder, and found some two dozen or so players from the turn of the century through the 30s and got them jawing about the game. These were players like Goose Goslin, Sam Crawford, Paul Waner, Lefty O'Doul, Rube Marquard, and Chief Meyers (perhaps the man who originally broke the color line in baseball) among others. There were amazing stories and pictures of these speakers, and all the greats from that era--Cobb, Ruth, Gehrig, McGraw, Wagner, Mathewson, Johnson, et. al. I still have my original first edition, and while I read Boys of Summer when it came out, I read through Glory of Their Times over and over and over again. It was that good. As a boy, I wrote to Ritter about how much I loved the book, and he took the time to send me a lengthy and warm handwritten reply about his joyful experience of putting the book together. Now that is class!! Ritter later put out an extended edition with several additional interviews, but it was hard to improve perfection. So, while we are lauding great baseball books, I just wanted to make mention of the one that started it all as far as the baseball oral history thing, and encourage others to discover this marvelous book, Glory of Their Times, to which I would give about ten stars. I am hoping that the Fay Vincent books will be even half as good, hence the 5 stars here. Comment | | (Report this)


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