Robinson played his first game for the Orioles in 1955, the year after the franchise arrived in Baltimore, was a key member of the club’ s first four World Series teams and lasted long enough to suit up with a new generation of stars, led by Eddie Murray. After watching Robinson dismantle the Cincinnati Reds with his glove and his bat, Pete Rose put it simply:“ Brooks.
No Oriole was more beloved or more integral to the story of the franchise than Brooks Robinson, who died Tuesday at age 86.
Robinson played his first game for the Orioles in 1955, the year after the franchise arrived in Baltimore, was a key member of the club’s first four World Series teams and lasted long enough to suit up with a new generation of stars, led by Eddie Murray.
Here are 10 moments that capture what Robinson meant to baseball and to Baltimore.
After watching Robinson dismantle the Cincinnati Reds with his glove and his bat, Pete Rose put it simply: “Brooks Robinson belongs in a higher league.”
What else was there to say about Robinson’s magnum opus? He hit .429 over five games, with two home runs and six RBIs. His home run off Gary Nolan provided the winning margin in Game 1. His two-run double put the Orioles on the board in their 9-3 win in Game 3.
But it was Robinson’s incomparable glove at third base that left the strongest impression on a national audience. He ranged several feet wide of the foul line to snare what looked like a sure hit for future teammate Lee May and made a perfect one-bounce throw to get May by a step. It’s the play that lives on in highlight reels, but Robinson made a half-dozen nearly as good over the course of the series. He was never better.
As great as Robinson was on the field, Baltimoreans cherished him just as much for his decency toward everyone who crossed his path. Not only would he sign an autograph for anyone who approached, he would chat with the person like an old friend or neighbor.
After Robinson was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1983 with 91.98% of the vote, Orioles fans seized on his induction in Cooperstown, New York as their chance to say thank you. A then-record crowd of 12,000 descended on the town of 2,500.
“Before these ceremonies could even begin, the crowd — which swept over knolls, spread itself under maple trees and stretched almost out of sight — had conducted its own singing of the national anthem, complete with an earsplitting ‘O’ at the appropriate ‘Oh, say can you see’ juncture,” Thomas Boswell wrote in The . “The gleeful mob, fresh from a morning of lay services at The Bold Dragoon Saloon, followed unofficial team mascot Wild Bill Hagy in spelling ‘O-R-I-O-L-E-S’ and passing the cold beer on a hot afternoon.
