Remembering Brooks Robinson: Where Line Drives Went to Die

Throughout the decade of the 1960s, Brooks Robinson was simply the best third baseman in baseball.

He was a vacuum cleaner at third base. He got to every ball he should have fielded, and handled most balls that no one should have been able to get to. He was not blessed with speed, but his incredible reflexes and a strong, accurate throwing arm allowed him to turn hits into outs with amazing consistency. No wonder there were so many winning pitchers on the Orioles' staff throughout the 1960s.

Robinson was signed by the Baltimore Orioles in 1955 and made the big league club to stay in 1958, batting .238 with 3 home runs and 32 RBIs. His hitting improved steadily, batting .294 in 1960 with 14 homers and 88 RBIs. His banner year came in 1964, when he hit .317 with 28 HRs and a league-leading 118 runs batted in. It was enough to win the American league Most Valuable Player award. And, of course, he won the Gold Glove (again) in 1964, his fifth in a row.

Robinson had a Gold Glove for every year in the 1960s – 16 in all during his career. (His 16 consecutive Gold Gloves is a record matched by only one other player – pitcher Jim Kaat.) Those who had the privilege of seeing Robinson at third never really had the opportunity to take his excellence for granted. He simply too often did too many things no third baseman should be able to do to allow complacency on the part of the fans. He was that good.

When Robinson retired, he held practically every career fielding record for a third baseman, including most career putouts (2,697), most career assists (6,205), most career double plays (618), and the highest fielding average (.971). In the 1970 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds, Robinson put on a line-drive killing clinic that earned him the MVP for that Series, which the Orioles won in 5 games.

Though he never matched his ofensive output of 1964, Robinson remained a consistent batting threat in the heart of the Orioles' batting order. With bats like those of Frank Robinson and Boog Powell complementing him, Robinson didn't need to put up MVP hitting number every year. In 1966, he drove in 100 runs for the Orioles during the team's World Championship season. He finished second in the MVP balloting that season to teammate Frank Robinson.

A 15-time All-Star, Robinson was voted the MVP of the 1966 All-Star game. Over his 23-year career, Robinson batted .267 and averaged 76 RBIs per season.

His hitting alone wouldn't have put him in the Hall of Fame. But two decades of consistently productive hitting, along with his spectacular fielding, did.