"C'mon, Robin! Give us that great old Whiz Kids smile!" -2001.
The news that we had given up Hall of Fame pitcher Robin Roberts at age 83 yesterday, May 6, 2010, hit me pretty hard. I was only a passing acquaintance of the former Phillies great, but he was really big to me back in the summer of 1950. That was the year that the 23-year old Roberts and his phellow band of Philadelphia Phillie juveniles pulled together to nip the Brooklyn Dodgers on the last day of the season for their city’s first National League pennant in thirty-five years. The Phillies then got swept by the New York Yankees in the 1950 World Series, but they had left their mark for all time upon the hopes of young people everywhere.
Robin Roberts (BR/TR) was born on September 30, 1926 in Springfield, Illinois. Before turning pro, he pitched for Michigan State University as a widely heralded future star, one of those that did not disappoint.
Starting with the 1950 Whiz Kids season, Robin Roberts rang up six consecutive seasons of twenty wins or more (1950-55). His best statistical season turned out to be 1952, when he compiled a 28-7 wins-losses record and an earned run average of 2.59.
Robin Roberts: The way I'll always remember him.
Robin Roberts had a 19-year major league career with the Phillies (1948-61), Orioles (1962-65), Astros 1965-66), and Cubs 1966. He had 45 career shutouts, 2,357 strikeouts, and he pitched 305 complete games. Pitchers worth their salt finished what they started back in Roberts’s day. In the past 25 years, Phillies pitchers have thrown a total of 300 complete games — five fewer than Robin Roberts worked by himself. Roberts made 609 starts, finishing more than half of those he began.
Roberts also gave up more home runs than any other major league pitcher in history. Chalk that one up to his tenacity for challenging the hitters and his ability to locate his pitches in the “I win or you win” zones. Current Phillies pitcher Jamie Moyer is on the verge of breaking that mark. Moyer, 47, has given up 498 homers, seven fewer than Robin Roberts at 505.
In his two partial seasons as Astro, Roberts went 5-2 with a 1.89 ERA in 1965 and 3-5 with a 3.82 ERA in 1966. For many of us Astro fans, he was just part of a baseball world that appeared to be headed toward some kind of new perfection. We had the first domed stadium that was big enough to handle major league baseball and we had THE Robin Roberts pitching for our newly rechristened Houston Astros. How right could we expect the world to get from here? What a great feeling that was, while it lasted.
Robin Roberts was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1976. He had been a regular annual supporter by his presence at Cooperstown induction ceremonies ever since and a passionate fan in retirement of his old club, the Phillies. It offers some small comfort to this diehard Astros fan to know that Robin Roberts lived to see his old club finally succeed in the World Series, but that’s as far as that kind wish goes. I wish it could have been the Astros, and not the Phillies, that had taken that 1980 playoff series, but that’s a horse of another color on this particular day. The subject today is one of the great right-handers of all time.
I always saw Roberts as one of those rare fastballers who also possessed strong finesse and ball location skills. In a way, as implied earlier, it may have been Robin’s ability to consistently locate his pitches in challenging places that inversely helped hitters to take him deep fairly often. Roberts didn’t seem to care enough to change his style. He still won the balance of his encounters and he did it often enough to make it to the Hall of Fame.
I first met Robin Roberts in 2001 at the reception prior to inductions into the Texas Baseball Hall of Fame in Fort Worth. That’s where I took the civilian shot of Roberts that appears in this post. When I asked Robin’s permission to take the photo, he responded willingly, but grimly, until I posed the the request put forth in caption with the photo. After that photo, it was my pleasure to talk a few minutes with Robin Roberts about that magical 1950 season. That Phillies smile never left him in the process.
I last saw Robin Roberts only last year at the Joe Niekro Knuckle Ball banquet at Minute Maid Park. I remember thinking how well he looked. His passing this week at age 83 just drives home the point one more time: Live today. Never takes tomorrow for granted.
Goodbye, Robin Roberts. We shall miss your smiling presence at our baseball gatherings, but we shall keep you in our baseball memories forever.
Tags: Baseball, History, Robin Roberts
The Pecan Park Eagle 
May 7, 2010 at 2:30 pm |
Robin Roberts was very gracious when I asked him to sign his biography through the mail. He had requested that $10 be sent to the Baseball Assistance Team (BAT) per autograph (I’d suggest that any memorials be sent in that direction), rather than pocket the money himself. Robin Roberts Stadium at Lanphier Park is the home of the wooden bat college team, the Springfield Sliders. The park is next to the high school he attended. When the Sliders opened their season a couple years ago, Roberts came to throw out the first pitch. Quite the gentleman!