Klingaman: Here’s to you, Mr. Robinson: Orioles third baseman had stellar season in 1964

From Mike Klingaman at the Baltimore Sun on August 9, 2019:

OK, so the stars weren’t aligned. The greatest baseball year in Brooks Robinson’s career did not produce an Orioles’ championship. More’s the pity because 55 years ago, the Hall of Fame third baseman crunched numbers that made him the American League’s Most Valuable Player — the first Oriole so named. He had career highs in batting (.317), homers (28) and RBIs (118), which led the AL. His fielding? Sublime.

In the summer of 1964, with the Orioles and White Sox locked in a tight flag race, three games in Chicago showed Robinson’s mettle. On Aug. 21, he hit his 21st homer and a run-scoring single in a 4-2 victory. The next night, he doubled and scored the first run, then hit a three-run homer in the ninth inning before more than 46,000 fans in another 4-2 win. The Orioles’ bench erupted.

“When [Robinson] reached the dugout,” The Sun reported, “one might have thought it was the hit to end a World Series.”

Read the full article here: https://www.baltimoresun.com/features/retro-baltimore/bs-md-retro-brooks-robinson-20190809-6xehp45rd5cafcj55ezvwjlkn4-story.html



Originally published: August 9, 2019. Last Updated: August 9, 2019.