FOX Sports presents "The Boys in the Hall," a series featuring
interviews with legendary members of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Check your local listings on April 15 for showings of "The Boys In The
Hall" featuring Frank Robinson.
For fans of the Cincinnati Reds, Dec. 9, 1965 is a day that will live in
infamy. That's when club president Bill DeWitt traded Frank Robinson to
the Baltimore Orioles.
Fans wept. Fans screamed. Fans threatened to never again occupy the tight-fitting seats of Crosley Field.
One
writer penned shortly after the trade, "The Reds didn't even get three
pieces of silver." What they received were pitchers Milt Pappas, Jack
Baldschun and outfielder Dick Simpson, none of whom ever did anything
extraordinary in a Cincinnati uniform.
DeWitt, who nearly had to
hire armed guards and barricade himself in his office, explained the
trade with the infamous words, "He is only 30, but he is an old 30."
The year before the trade, Robinson batted .296 with 33 homers and 113 RBI and didn't need crutches to get around the bases.
Much
to the dismay of DeWitt and Reds Country, during his first season with
the Orioles Robinson won the American League Most Valuable Player and
won the Triple Crown, leading the league in batting average (.316), home
runs (49) and RBI (122).
Robinson won the National League MVP in
1961 with the Reds and remains, to this day, the only player to win the
MVP award in both leagues.
Old 30, indeed.
Robinson made
the All-Star team 14 times, six times after DeWitt deemed him a
tottering shell of a player on the downside of his career.
To
this day, all anybody has to say around Cincinnati is "Robby," and fans
know it is not a reference to Jackie Robinson or Brooks Robinson; it is
Frank Robinson.
One of Robby's best lines came when he and Hall
of Fame third baseman Brooks Robinson played together with the Orioles
and he said, "I don't see why you reporters confuse me and Brooks
Robinson. Can't you see that we wear different numbers?"
During his 20-year career that landed him in the Hall of Fame in 1982, Robinson hit .294 with 586 home runs and 1,812 RBI.
He
was so good and so feared that former New York Yankees pitcher and
author Jim Bouton once said, "Going over the hitters in a pitchers'
meeting before a game, it was decided that we should pitch Frank
Robinson underground." And Don Drysdale, upon being asked how he pitched
to Robinson, said with a smile, "With tears in my eyes."
Robinson's
batting style was to crowd home plate, nearly plant his foot on the
platter, then lean over and dare pitchers to throw inside. And they did.
Robinson led the league in getting hit by pitches seven times. Every
time he faced fearsome Bob Gibson, the first pitch Gibson threw would
knock down Robinson. Then he'd get up and bang a hit.
"Pitchers
did me a favor when they knocked me down," Robinson said. "It made me
more determined that the pitcher would not get me out."
Robinson
is a product of Oakland's McClymonds High School, where he played
basketball with Bill Russell before the Reds signed Robinson as an
amateur free agent in 1953. Russell went on to other things.
Robinson
burst in with a bang for the Reds in 1956 when he played 152 games and
hit .290 with 38 homers and 83 RBI, leading the league in runs scored
with 122. It earned him Rookie of the Year at the age of 21.
"I always tried to do my best," he said. "I know I couldn't be the best, but I tried to be."
After
10 years with the Reds, he became an Orioles legend, too. Not only was
he MVP and a Triple Crown winner in 1966, he was the World Series MVP
when the O's beat the Dodgers four straight. Robby homered twice and the
second one came in Game 4, the only run off Drysdale in a 1-0 Orioles
victory.
Before that, on May 18, 1966, Robinson became the only
player to hit one completely out of old Baltimore Memorial Stadium, and
they raised a flag that read, "Here," marking the spot where the
baseball was last seen spiraling into the darkness toward the historic
harbor.
Even before his playing days were over, Robinson became a
manager, the first African-American manager. He was player/manager of
the Cleveland Indians in 1975 and 1976. During a press conference to
announce his hiring, Robinson said, "If I had one wish in the world
today, it would be that Jackie Robinson (baseball's first
African-American major-league player) could be here to see this happen."
During
his tenure as manager of the Washington Nationals, one of his players
asked him, "Did you ever play in the major leagues?"
Did he ever,
even after he was an old 30-year-old. They know he played the game in
Cincinnati. His number, 20, is retired and it hangs in large red figures
on the façade in front of the Great American Ball Park.
There should be words under it: "Worst trade ever involving a member of the Cincinnati Reds."
