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Brooks Robinson, the Baltimore Orioles’ Hall of Fame third baseman who led his team to two World Series championships and is widely considered the best defensive third baseman of all time in baseball, died Sept. 26. He was 86 years old.
The team announced the death but did not provide further details.
During his 23-year career in Baltimore, Mr. Robinson was an All-Star for 15 seasons and won the Gold Glove Award as the best outfielder at his position 16 consecutive years. His ability to grab any ball hit his way earned him many nicknames, including “the human vacuum cleaner,” and he remained one of Baltimore’s most popular athletes long after his retirement in 1977.
He was named American League MVP in 1964 and was among the core of players, including fellow Hall of Famers Jim Palmer and Frank Robinson (no relation), who built an Orioles dynasty for the next decade as the team won the six-time championship Reached the postseason and the World Series four times.
Although the Orioles lost the 1969 World Series to the New York Mets, Mr. Robinson’s reputation as a defensive master was already established by then.
“I’m not going to hit the ball to Robinson in this series,” said Donn Clendenon of the Mets. “He’s the vacuum cleaner, don’t you know that?”
One of the highlights of Mr. Robinson’s career was the 1970 World Series, which the Orioles won in five games against Cincinnati’s Big Red Machine. Mr. Robinson was named MVP of the series.
He set the tone in the first game, snagging a ground ball off the bat of the Reds’ Lee May in the sixth inning when his momentum carried him deep into foul territory. Mr. Robinson made a spinning throw to gun down May and stop a rally in Cincinnati.
“He was on his way to the bullpen when he threw to first,” Clay Carroll, a Reds reliever, said at the time. “His arm moved one way, his body went the other and his shoes went the other.”
In the next inning, Mr. Robinson hit a home run, winning the game for Baltimore, 4-3.
He continued to make clutch plays in the field and at the plate throughout the five games of the series. In Game 3, Mr. Robinson jumped up to knock down Tony Perez’s sharply hit grounder, stepped to third base and hurled the ball to first base for a double play.
In the ninth inning of the fifth and final game, Mr. Robinson dove headlong into foul territory to catch a line drive from Cincinnati’s power-hitting catcher Johnny Bench. Fittingly, Mr. Robinson made the final play of the series with a ground ball to third.
In addition to his dazzling fielding, Mr. Robinson posted a .429 batting average during the Series, with two home runs and six runs batted in, marking one of the most spectacular performances in World Series history.
“I’m starting to see Brooks in his sleep,” Reds manager Sparky Anderson quipped afterwards. “If I dropped that paper plate, he would pick it up in a heartbeat and throw me out first.”
But for all his success on the field, Mr. Robinson was not particularly agile and had only an average throwing arm. His strengths were his nimble hands, lightning fast throwing speed and an uncanny instinct for predicting where a ball would land.
“When I chase a ball, I always think I can get it out,” he told Sports Illustrated in 1969.
Mr. Robinson had his best season in 1964, when he batted .317, hit 28 home runs and drove in 118 runs – all career highs – and was named American League MVP.
Although the Orioles won 97 games in 1964, they did not reach the World Series until 1966, when another Robinson – hard-hitting outfielder Frank Robinson – was acquired in a trade with Cincinnati. Frank Robinson, the Orioles’ first black star, led the league in batting average, home runs and RBIs and won baseball’s Triple Crown. Brooks Robinson scored 100 runs and shone in the field.
Brooks Robinson had grown up in Little Rock, where he attended Central High School, where violent white protests against state-enforced integration efforts took place in 1957.
But in Baltimore, Brooks Robinson welcomed Frank Robinson from the start, saying the slugger was “exactly what we need.”
With the two Robinsons, pitchers Palmer and Dave McNally, and Hall of Fame shortstop Luis Aparicio, the Orioles won the 1966 World Series over the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Throughout his career, Mr. Robinson was always obliging when asked for an autograph and was even depicted in a Norman Rockwell painting signing a baseball for a young fan. (He wrote with his left hand, although he hit and threw with his right hand.)
“Of all the sports greats, Robinson was perhaps the least cursed by his own fame,” wrote Washington Post sports columnist Thomas Boswell in 1977, when Robinson retired. “He had great talent and never abused it. He received recognition and returned it with grace. While other players dressed and acted like kings, Robinson arrived at the park dressed like a taxi driver. Other stars had fans. Robinson made friends.”
Brooks Calbert Robinson Jr. was born May 18, 1937 in Little Rock. His father, a firefighter who played semi-pro baseball, introduced his son to baseball at a young age, using a sawed-off broom handle as a bat.
Shortly after graduating from high school in 1955, Mr. Robinson signed with the Orioles, a year after the former St. Louis Browns moved to Baltimore. He played briefly in the big leagues in 1955 and became the starting third baseman in 1958 before being sent back to the minor leagues the following year.
He finally became an Oriole in 1960 and never played with another team.
During his career, Mr. Robinson set a record for most games played at third base (2,870) and is still by far baseball’s all-time leader in most putouts, assists and double plays at his position.
Best known for his fielding, he finished his career with a lifetime batting average of .267, 268 home runs and 1,357 runs batted in, and was easily elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1983, the first year he was eligible to play. He was a leader of the players’ union, the Major League Baseball Players Association.
In 1959, he met Constance Butcher, a flight attendant on one of the Orioles’ team flights. He told her that all of his teammates were married, according to his 1974 memoir, “Third Base Is My Home.”
“So remember,” he added, “if any of them try to talk to you, I’ll be the only single, eligible bachelor on the plane.”
A year later they married. Mr. Robinson, who was raised a Methodist, converted to Catholicism, his wife’s faith. They had four children. A full list of survivors was not immediately available.
After his playing career, Mr. Robinson worked as a television broadcaster for the Orioles from 1978 to 1993. He lived briefly in California before returning to the Baltimore area, where he worked in several businesses, including a petroleum company, an athlete consulting organization and other minor league baseball franchises. He co-authored several books about his life in baseball.
He sold most of his memorabilia in 2015 and donated the $1.44 million proceeds to a charitable foundation he and his wife founded.
In 1991, before the final game at Baltimore Memorial Stadium – the Orioles’ home for Mr. Robinson’s entire career – he threw out the ceremonial first pitch. He was joined by former Baltimore Colts quarterback Johnny Unitas, who threw a football.
The Orioles drafted Mr. Robinson’s No.
“Baseball is the only thing I have ever done in my life,” he said in 1969, “and it is the only thing I have ever loved.”