Brooks Robinson (1937-2023), the Standard-Setter at Third Base

Variously generally known as the “The Human Vacuum Cleaner,” “Mr. Hoover,” or “Mr. Impossible,” Brooks Robinson set the usual for defensive wizardry at third base, successful a file 16 consecutive Gold Gloves due to his mixture of ambidexterity, supernaturally fast reflexes, and acrobatic talent. He was an 18-time All-Star, an everyday season, All-Star Game, and World Series MVP, and a first-ballot Hall of Famer. More than that, he was “Mr. Oriole” for his 23 seasons spent with Baltimore, a foundational piece for 4 pennant winners and two champions, and a beloved icon inside the neighborhood and all through the sport. In 1966, Sports Illustrated’s William Leggett wrote that Robinson “ranked second only to crab cakes in Baltimore.” He could have surpassed them since.

Robinson died on Tuesday on the age of 86. According to his agent, the trigger was coronary illness. On the published of the Orioles’ sport on Tuesday night time, longtime teammate and fellow Hall of Famer Jim Palmer fought again tears to pay tribute. “We all know he’s a great player, he won 16 Gold Gloves, but we also know how special a person he was,” mentioned Palmer, who like Robinson debuted with the Orioles as a young person, spent his complete profession with the crew, and was elected to the Hall of Fame in his first yr of eligibility. “I think as a young player you make a decision early in your life, ‘Okay, who do I want to emulate? Who do I want to be like?’ Brooks was that guy.”

Indeed, Robinson the individual was much more revered than Robinson the participant. Wrote the Washington Post’s Thomas Boswell on the event of the third baseman’s 1983 induction to the Hall:

The a part of Robinson that might be hardest to transmit to posterity might be his upright character, his manly gentleness, his fixed consideration for others, his knack of mixing candor with kindness. In an age seemingly dedicated to exposing each foible of a public determine, Robinson — nearly alone amongst baseball gamers — was accepted as a form of pure nobleman. “People love Brooks because he deserves to be loved,” mentioned Manager Earl Weaver.

Robinson spent his complete main league profession with the Orioles, debuting in 1955 as an 18-year-old and retiring late within the ’77 season on the age of 40. Though hardly ever a spectacular hitter, he totaled 2,848 profession hits and 268 homers to go together with a .267/.322/.401 (105 OPS+) batting line. He made 18 All-Star groups (together with two a yr from 1960–62) and set a file for place gamers together with his 16 straight Gold Gloves (from 1969–75); solely pitcher Greg Maddux gained extra (18), whereas pitcher Jim Kaat equaled Robinson’s whole. In 1964, he gained AL MVP honors by hitting .317/.368/.521 (145 OPS+) with 28 homers and main the league with 118 RBI and eight.1 WAR.

The pinnacle of Robinson’s profession was the 1970 World Series, when he etched himself into the nationwide consciousness together with his excellent, MVP-winning efficiency on either side of the ball in opposition to the Reds. He hit for a .429 common with two homers and 6 RBI within the Orioles’ five-game triumph, and together with his diving stops and improbably correct throws throughout the diamond, produced among the most memorable and oft-aired highlights of any Fall Classic.

“I’m beginning to see Brooks in my sleep,” mentioned Reds supervisor Sparky Anderson afterwards. “If I dropped this paper plate, he’d pick it up on one hop and throw me out at first.”

Robinson moreover helped the Orioles win the 1966 World Series in addition to pennants in ’69 and ’71, with division titles in ’73 and ’74 as nicely. He hit .303/.323/.462 in 156 plate appearances in his postseason profession, and even with a 1-for-19 efficiency in a shedding trigger in opposition to the Mets within the 1969 World Series, carried a fame as a clutch hitter. But for all of his accomplishments, he was hardly a five-tool standout. He lacked foot velocity and bat velocity, and had neither nice energy nor a very robust arm; in truth, he was a pure left-hander who discovered to throw right-handed in his youth, and constructed up his arm by throwing newspapers on a supply route that included Hall of Fame catcher Bill Dickey. His play on the sizzling nook was unorthodox, because the Chicago Daily Herald’s Mike Klein defined in 1973 (h/t Mark Simon):

“It’s a cardinal rule of baseball that any profitable infielder crouch low, hold his head down and glove near the bottom. ‘Play the ball; don’t let the ball play you.’

“But Robinson, and this attests to his nice quickness (completely different from velocity, which he lacks) performs larger than most brothers of the Hot Corner Fraternity. His crouch is much less pronounced. Playing down at shell metropolis means assault and cost the ball. Which he does to perfection.

“There’s even a worked-up set of Brooks Robinson footsteps for ensuring he pivots off the left foot when fielding bunts. What makes his golden magnetic glovework so intriguing nonetheless is that Robinson going backwards and to both aspect will make a greater play than most third basemen taking part in it by all the foundations. It is distinctly Robinson.

“Nobody else does it quite the same.”

Brooks Calbert Robinson was born on May 18, 1937 in Little Rock, Arkansas. His father, Brooks Robinson Sr., was a fireman who performed semiprofessional baseball, whereas his mom, Ethel Mae (Denker) Robinson, was a clerk on the Arkansas State treasury division. The elder Robinson launched the sport to his son, sawing off a broomstick to make use of as a bat, hitting him groundballs, and using him as his crew’s batboy. The youthful Robinson listened to the Cardinals on the radio rising up, and when he was 12 years previous, wrote a faculty composition project on his ambition to play third base for the crew.

At Little Rock Central High School — which two years after his 1955 commencement would turn out to be well-known for its Supreme Court-ordered desegregation — Robinson starred in basketball, incomes all-state honors as a junior. He performed soccer as nicely, however the faculty didn’t have a baseball crew, so he adopted in his father’s footsteps by taking part in with the town’s American Legion crew, the Little Rock Doughboys. His glovework drew the eye of Lindsay Deal, a scout who had a short cup of espresso with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1939 and was a former teammate of Paul Richards, who took over because the supervisor and normal supervisor of the Orioles in 1955, a yr after their inaugural season in Baltimore (they’d been the St. Louis Browns prior). “He’s no speed demon, but neither is he a truck horse,” wrote Deal in a letter to Richards. “Brooks has a lot of power, baseball savvy, and is always cool when the chips are down.”

The Orioles, Reds, and Giants every supplied Robinson a $4,000 bonus to signal, with all however the final of these groups providing main league contracts as nicely. Robinson selected Baltimore, signing two days after graduating from highschool in May. Scout Arthur Ehlers satisfied him that the group’s low standing (they’d completed seventh at 54-100 in 1954) supplied Robinson a faster path to the majors. That turned out to be appropriate, in that after hitting .331/.415/.489 with 11 homers in 95 video games for the York White Roses of the Class B Piedmont League, he was known as up. In his main league debut on September 17, 1955, Robinson went 2-for-4 with singles off the Senators’ Chuck Stobbs and Webbo Clarke, driving in a run by way of the latter. At 18 years and 122 days previous, he stays the second-youngest place participant to debut with the Orioles since their transfer to Baltimore.

Those had been the one two hits Robinson collected in 22 PA within the majors that yr. He spent all however 15 video games of the 1956 season with Double-A San Antonio, amassing his first main league homer off the Senators’ Evelio Hernández on September 29. He made the Orioles’ Opening Day lineup in 1957 however tore cartilage in his knee two weeks into the season, missed two months, and spent over a month rehabbing at San Antonio earlier than returning to the majors. He hit simply .239/.286/.359 with two homers in 50 video games that yr.

With incumbent third baseman (and future Hall of Famer) George Kell retiring after the 1957 season, Robinson lastly spent a full yr within the majors in ’58. Alas, his dismal efficiency (.238/.292/.305, 69 OPS+) after which a gradual begin in 1959 — fallout from a winter stint within the Army National Guard, and a late arrival to spring coaching — led to a return journey to the minors, on this case Triple-A Vancouver. Upon being recalled, he bought sizzling over the season’s ultimate two months and completed with a decent .284/.325/.383 (97 OPS+) line in 88 video games. He was within the main leagues for good.

Robinson broke out in 1960, his age-23 season. He hit .294/.329/.440 (108 OPS+) with 14 homers, and started All-Star and Gold Glove streaks. His 4.1 WAR ranked sixth within the league (although after all the metric was about half a century away from being invented), and he completed third within the AL MVP voting behind Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle. The Orioles went 89-65 and completed second within the AL, the franchise’s first season above .500 since 1945 (they went 76-76 in 1957).

The 1960 season started a five-year stretch by which Robinson hit nicely in even-year seasons however was barely subpar in odd-year ones, although protection all the time bolstered his worth. After hitting for a 98 OPS+ with simply seven homers in 1961, he set profession highs for himself throughout the board with a 126 OPS+ (.303/.342/.486) efficiency with 23 homers and a league-leading 6.1 WAR in ’62. After a tepid 1963, he had what would stand as the perfect statistical season of his profession in ’64 whereas serving to the Orioles to 97 wins below first-year supervisor Hank Bauer. He was a near-unanimous selection because the AL MVP, receiving 18 of 20 first-place votes.

Robinson adopted that nice 1964 season with third- and second-place finishes within the MVP voting due to extra consistency on the plate. In the second of these seasons, 1966, he was joined by Frank Robinson by way of a commerce from the Reds. The newcomer had been the NL MVP half a decade earlier however was considered as “an old 30” within the phrases of Reds proprietor Bill DeWitt. The Orioles had by no means had a Black star earlier than, they usually already had a clubhouse chief of their third baseman, however considerations about how the incoming Robinson could be obtained had been allayed when the incumbent one greeted him on the batting cage by telling him, “Frank, you’re exactly what we need.” On Opening Day, after the Red Sox’s Earl Wilson hit Frank with a pitch in his first plate look as an Oriole, Brooks adopted with a two-run homer. “The Act,” as Sports Illustrated termed the pairing of the Robinsons, shortly grew to become a smashing success.

Frank’s firebrand play put a stamp on the Orioles as he gained the AL Triple Crown and MVP honors. The Orioles gained their first pennant, then confronted off in opposition to the Dodgers, the reigning champions, within the World Series. The Robinsons hit back-to-back house runs off Don Drysdale within the first inning of the opener and didn’t path for a single inning because the Orioles pulled off a surprising four-game sweep.

Thanks to above-average offense and off-the-charts protection — Total Zone scores of 32 and 33 runs — at a time when pitching was turning into ever extra dominant, Robinson was runner-up to Carl Yastrzemski on the AL WAR leaderboards in each 1967 (7.7) and ’68 (8.4), although the Orioles couldn’t repeat as AL champions. At the All-Star break in 1968, Bauer was fired, changed by Weaver, and due to a late cost the Orioles gained 91 video games and completed second.

They had been simply getting began below Weaver. With every league cut up into two divisions beginning in 1969, the Orioles started a run of dominance within the new AL East, successful a complete of 318 video games over a three-season span in addition to three AL pennants. Robinson hit for a modest 105 OPS+ throughout that stretch however nonetheless averaged 20 homers and 4.7 WAR. After beating the Twins within the 1969 ALCS, the Orioles had been upset by the Miracle Mets; Robinson, who had gone 7-for-14 within the ALCS, was held to only one hit, although twice he drove within the Orioles’ solely run in 2-1 losses, no small feat for a crew that scored simply 9 runs in 5 video games.

After going 7-for-12 within the Orioles’ three-game sweep of the Twins in 1970, Robinson took over the World Series in opposition to the Reds from the outset. In the sixth inning of the opening sport at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium — the primary out of doors ballpark with Astroturf — Robinson set the tone together with his cease of a sizzling smash off the bat of Lee May down the third bottom line. Robinson backhanded the ball whereas lunging into foul territory, and together with his momentum nonetheless carrying him to his proper threw a excessive, arcing one-hopper to Boog Powell at first base in time for the out. Thanks to the confluence of shade tv and slow-motion immediate replay, the play has turn out to be some of the well-known in trendy World Series historical past, a mesmerizing spectacle and an archetype for equally dazzling performs by the likes of Manny Machado and Nolan Arenado nowadays.

“His arm went one way, his body another, and his shoes another,” mentioned Reds pitcher Clay Carroll of the play. In the subsequent half-inning, Robinson broke a 3-3 tie with a solo homer off Gary Nolan that proved to be the deciding run. In the fourth inning of Game 2, Robinson victimized May once more, making a diving cease to his proper, spinning, after which beginning a 5-4-3 double play (see the highest video on the 1:58 mark); he later singled and scored within the midst of a five-run fifth inning that erased a 4-1 deficit. In Game 3, he drove in a pair of first inning runs with a double off Tony Cloninger, ended the highest of the sixth with a diving catch of a line drive to his left off the bat of Johnny Bench, and within the backside of the body added one other double and scored when pitcher Dave McNally hit a grand slam. In Game 4, he went 4-for-4 with one other solo homer off Nolan in addition to an RBI single in a shedding trigger. In the ninth inning of Game 5, he dove to spear a foul ball off the bat of Bench, and, fittingly, started the Series-clinching play by fielding a routine grounder by Pat Corrales, then firing to first to present the Orioles their second championship in a five-year interval.

Robinson was the plain MVP of the Series. “If we’d have known he wanted a new car that bad, we’d have chipped in and bought him one,” quipped Bench afterwards. When mixed together with his 1964 AL MVP award and ’66 All-Star Game MVP award, Robinson was the primary participant to say all three honors. Frank Robinson grew to become the second only a yr later together with his All-Star Game award. Nobody has completed it since.

After the Orioles gained the AL East once more in 1971, Robinson got here up massive within the ALCS in opposition to the A’s, a budding dynasty themselves. In Game 1 he singled in opposition to rookie sensation Vida Blue and scored the tying run in a four-run seventh-inning rally that proved decisive. In Game 2, he began the scoring with a second-inning solo homer off Catfish Hunter; the Orioles gained once more, 5-1. In Game 3, his two-run, bases-loaded double off Diego Segui broke a 1-1 tie within the fifth inning, and he added one other double within the seventh because the Orioles accomplished the sweep. In the World Series in opposition to the Pirates, he went 3-for-3 with two walks and three RBI in an 11-3 win in Game 2 however was in any other case comparatively quiet within the seven-game traditional, which the Pirates gained.

Wanting to seek out area for the up-and-coming Don Baylor, the Orioles traded the 36-year-old Frank Robinson to the Dodgers after the 1971 season. Subsequent Orioles groups weren’t as robust, and neither was Brooks. Though he totaled 11.0 WAR from 1972–74, he produced only one above-average season with the bat, within the final of these years. With Baylor and second baseman Bobby Grich offering a much-needed injection of youth, the Orioles gained back-to-back division titles in 1973 and ’74, however they couldn’t get previous the A’s within the ALCS in both yr.

After hitting a dismal .201/.267/.274 in 1975 — nonetheless a season by which he was 18 runs above common defensively en path to 1.8 WAR — and struggling on the plate into 1976 as nicely, Robinson was lastly supplanted because the common third baseman by 25-year-old Doug DeCinces. He spent 1977 as a player-coach, setting a file for 23 consecutive seasons with one crew (Yastrzemski later tied it), however he performed sparingly. He pinch-hit a three-run walk-off off Cleveland’s Dave LaRoche within the tenth inning on April 9; it was his 268th and ultimate house run.

On August 21, with the crew dealing with a roster crunch, Robinson retired as a participant. “Despite the logic of the move, it was a very difficult decision to make, considering Brooks’s tremendous achievements and the love we all have for him,” mentioned normal supervisor Hank Peters. “He has been, unquestionably, the Orioles’ most important and most beloved player and he never will be replaced in the hearts of his countless fans.”

A month later, the Orioles paid tribute with a pregame ceremony that included retiring his no. 5. They drove Robinson across the discipline in a 1955 Cadillac, representing his first yr within the majors, and offered him with a brand new automobile, a Hawaiian trip, and Memorial Stadium’s third base itself. The Rawlings Company gave him alternative Gold Gloves, as he had donated all however two of his unique 16 to native charities. May, by this level a teammate, offered Robinson with a vacuum cleaner, referring again to the 1970 World Series as he mentioned, “Everything we hit, you sucked it up. And you’ll notice, Brooks, that just like you, this machine has a lot of miles on it.”

In 1978, Robinson joined the Orioles’ broadcast sales space, a job he would stay in via ’93. He couldn’t afford to retire to a lifetime of leisure, as he made lower than $1 million in wage in his complete profession, and wound up broke in 1976 when his sporting items retailer was overextended. He grew to become an everyday on the baseball card present circuit (this scribe bought his autograph on the 2002 All-Star Game Fan Fest), and was concerned in quite a few companies, lending his identify to merchandise and serving as a spokesman for Crown Petroleum. Later he was concerned in a gaggle that owned 4 minor league groups, together with one in York, Pennsylvania, the place he started his skilled profession.

Robinson was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1983, receiving 92% of the vote and turning into the primary third baseman to be elected by the BBWAA in his first yr of eligibility — and simply the third they’d elected in any respect in 48 years. To that time, solely Ty Cobb, Henry Aaron, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Willie Mays, Bob Feller, Ted Williams, and Stan Musial obtained larger shares of the vote, although at this time Robinson ranks twenty eighth in voting share. He was inducted alongside Juan Marichal, Walter Alston, and Kell, the guy Arkansas native who had served as his mentor with the Orioles in 1957.

In phrases of superior statistics, Robinson ranks seventh amongst third basemen in profession WAR (78.4), eleventh in seven-year peak (45.8), and eighth in JAWS (62.1), with 5 of the seven gamers above him within the final of these classes hailing from more moderen eras. Not surprisingly, his standing is pushed by the estimate of his defensive worth, which relies on knowledge admittedly much less subtle than we’ve got at this time. He’s first amongst third basemen in Fielding Runs (Total Zone and Defensive Runs Saved) by a rustic mile:

Additionally, Robinson is third all-time amongst all fielders in dWAR, the full defensive worth that features each Fielding Runs and positional changes:

If there’s an commercial for the Oriole Way, whose basis was laid by Richards and maintained by his successors, it’s right here. Not solely did the homegrown Robinson and Belanger kind the perfect defensive left aspect of any infield for a interval of over a decade, however Aparicio preceded Belanger because the crew’s common shortstop from 1962-66. Ripken was the son of a profession minor leaguer who served because the spine of the group as a coach and supervisor; Cal Ripken Sr. managed Belanger at A-level Aberdeen in 1964.

Anyway, longevity clearly has one thing to do with Robinson’s standing — in truth, his 2,896 video games performed ranked fifth when he retired and remains to be sixteenth — nevertheless it’s additionally notable that he by no means began a sport at one other place, and performed simply 47.1 innings elsewhere, switching to second or shortstop in late-inning conditions early in his profession. He by no means performed first base or DH, and supplied important defensive worth at third for so long as he held the common job.

“I don’t think anybody will care what I did here 20 or 25 years from now,” mentioned Robinson with typical humility to Sports Illustrated’s Mark Kram in 1970. Yet greater than half a century later, individuals nonetheless do care, not solely in regards to the feats Robinson achieved on the sector however about the way in which he carried himself off of it. That’s fairly a legacy.