Hall of Fame third baseman Brooks Robinson, the “Human Vacuum Cleaner,” has died at the age of 86.
Robinson played his entire 23-year career with the Orioles. He was selected to 18 All-Star Games and earned the 1964 AL Most Valuable Player award after batting .318 with 28 home runs and a league-leading 118 RBIs. He won 16 consecutive Gold Gloves. He was the best-fielding third basemen I’ve ever seen.
Robinson’s most memorable performance came as MVP of the 1970 World Series, a five-game triumph over the Reds, He hit .429, homered twice and drove in six runs.
In Game 1, Robinson delivered the tiebreaking home run in the seventh inning. One inning earlier, he made a sensational backhanded grab of a hard grounder hit down the line by Lee May, spun around in foul territory and somehow threw out the runner.
Robinson contributed an RBI single in the second game and became forever a part of World Series lore with his standout performance in Game 3. He made a tremendous, leaping grab of a grounder by Tony Perez to start a first-inning double play; charged a slow roller in the second inning and threw out Tommy Helms; then capped his memorable afternoon with a diving catch of a liner by Johnny Bench.
“I’m beginning to see Brooks in my sleep,” Reds manager Sparky Anderson said during the Series. “If I dropped this paper plate, he’d pick it up on one hop and throw me out at first.”
Robinson was elected into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot in 1983. In 1999, he was named to baseball’s All-Century team, which honored the best 25 players of the 20th century.
RIP Brooks Robinson