Sunday, September 20, 2015
#550 Brooks Robinson
Go to Baseball Reference and type B-R-O-O…Robinson’s
name will be first on the first….Oriole legend in the field….appeared in 23 MLB
seasons…was able to sneak in a couple of Oriole games in first professional
season of 1955….shuffled between minor and Baltimore for 4 more seasons… true
stardom started in 1960….starting an incredible string of awards; 14 and 15
straight years of all star game and gold gloves respectively…Voted in HOF far
quicker than NL counterpart Ron Santo…won AL MVP in 1964…World Series MVP in 1970
leading the Oriole’s romp over the Reds…hit over .500 in post season play that
year…in seemed to make the difficult play at the most critical time in the
series and career in general…only career liabilities are a relatively slow
start to stardom and stayed a bit too long .200 average in last 3 seasons….wonderful
nicknames of the “human vacuum cleaner” and “Mr. Impossible”.
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Since you brought it up, Santo should have been in a lot sooner. Not to take anything away from Brooksie (who I greatly admire) but if he had played with diabetes since 1960 I doubt if his career would have lasted as long as it did and their stats would have been a lot more similar. I'm lucky to have grown up watching both of them.
ReplyDeleteI think Robinson's playoff hero image has a lot to do with the discrepancy. Maybe an east coast bias too. They both are the dominant 3rd basemen of their era when many teams were not finding consistent 3rd basemen.
ReplyDeleteThere is a major contrast between the number of star third basemen in the 60's vs. the 70's - especially in the National League.
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