Growing up in Maryland in the 1960s, Brooks Robinson was a god. Every kid wanted to wear his No. 5. Even young lefties like future AP Baseball Writer Ben Walker tried to play third base like him.
We imitated his aw-shucks Arkansas twang. We copied his relaxed, shoulders-bouncing jog off the field. If we could’ve worn a short-brimmed batting helmet like he did, we would’ve.
Boosted by the great Frank Robinson, the elegant Paul Blair and the smooth Jim Palmer, the Orioles won their first World Series championship. The famed picture of Brooks leaping across the diamond toward Dave McNally after the final out of sweeping the Dodgers, Brooks’ sheer exhilaration, we all wanted to be him that October afternoon.
In the 1970 World Series, the whole baseball world got to see what we’d been watching for years in Baltimore. So I ran out there, too. And I had my spot picked out — I went to the edge of the grass near where Brooks landed in foul territory after thwarting Bench, and pulled up a small plot of sod. Parents in the neighborhood often praised Brooks as much for his humility as his home runs. I saw that first-hand in 1983 when I was preparing to cover his first-ballot induction into the Hall of Fame.
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