Brooks Robinson, 1992 Ziploc #5

Last night I promised more goofy cards featuring Cal Ripken hawking Holiday Inn. However, I put those plans on hold when I realized that today was Brooks Robinson's 83rd birthday. I find myself looking for silver linings more than ever right now, and every day that Brooks Robinson is with us, the world really is a better place for it. You'd be hard pressed to find someone with an unkind word to say about Brooksie.

Vintage Fridays: Brooks Robinson, 1969 Topps #421

There's a few things to unpack with this Brooks Robinson All-Star card. First things first: yes, it's very well-worn. It's entirely possible that somebody tried to make an origami crane out of ol' Brooksie. You might also notice that his cap looks pretty old-fashioned. Indeed, the Orioles last wore those black caps with the chicken-scratch-looking bird way back in 1965. As with many other cards in the 1969 set, this presumably has something to do with the Marvin Miller-orchestrated player boycott of Topps photographers that spanned the 1967 and 1968 seasons. (More information here.) Lastly, there's the background image. When I first grabbed this card from the binder tonight, I thought it was an early example of an action photo on a baseball card. But a closer look reveals an odd painting effect. Your guess is as good as mine. The back of the card is a piece of a photo puzzle of legendary Red Sox left fielder Carl Yastrzemski. It's most of his cap, with the familiar Boston "B". I'm not including a picture here, because it's just a disembodied hat. I have my limits.

Brooks Robinson, 1992 Front Row The All-Time Great Series Brooks Robinson #3

Manny Machado still has his work cut out for him if he wants to match Brooks Robinson's 18 All-Star Game Appearances, but he was just named to his third Midsummer Classic. Not a bad start for a guy who celebrates his 24th birthday today. Next Tuesday, Manny will start at third base for the American League, having won the fan vote for the first time on the strength of his otherworldly defense at both shortstop and the hot corner and his breakout offensive numbers (.324/.380/.590, 29 2B, 19 HR, 53 RBI). He will be joined by four Orioles teammates. Matt Wieters will be a reserve catcher, having rebounded from Tommy John surgery to put up a solid .272/.323/.441 line with nine homers and 37 RBI in 60 games. Mark Trumbo's league-leading 26 home runs, four more than his total for the 2015 season, earned him a reserve outfield slot. Brad Brach, a one-time 42nd round draft pick who has posted a 0.99 ERA, 0.79 WHIP, and 10.4 K/9 IP in 45 appearances as a setup man, will be an All-Star for the first time. And of course Zach Britton, he of the 24 saves in 24 attempts in 2016 (and 0.78 ERA and WHIP, 11.2 K/9 IP, and 5.38 K/BB...) will be one of the anchors of the A.L. bullpen at Petco Park. If you would've told me five years ago that the O's would have five All-Stars, I probably would've assumed that you meant cumulatively in a five-year span. It's a new era.

Brooks Robinson, 2013 Panini Hometown Heroes #178

You know what they say: you only turn 79 once.

What, you've never heard that one? Oh. Well, anyway, happy birthday, Brooksie! It's been a pleasure to have you in our lives for another year. Thank you for helping to make Baltimore the town that it is.

Vintage Fridays: Brooks Robinson, 1969 Topps Deckle Edge #1

Brooks Robinson, as you may know, was successfully treated for prostate cancer back in 2009. I can't for the life of me find an easy segue to tonight's blog post, so I'll just get on with it.

My wife is 25 weeks pregnant, and two weeks ago she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

If that sentence hit you like a punch in the gut, you have some small idea of how we felt when the hospital called with the biopsy results. We were in Charlotte at the time, so we could attend the visitation and funeral for Janet's grandmother, a remarkable woman who had just passed away after 96 years well lived. (The first week of March 2016 will not be making our favorites list, to say the least.) I've been wrestling with so many conflicting emotions over the past couple of weeks, so please indulge me as I spill everything out through my keyboard.

• I'm relieved that Janet's cancer treatment doesn't carry any risk of harm for our unborn baby. On the back end of the second trimester, the fetus has done most of its crucial development and is mostly just adding weight and length from now until it reaches full term. Janet will be undergoing chemotherapy up until delivery, and the drugs are unable to pass through the placenta. In the early going, focusing on the development of our child has helped us both to stay sane in the face of our new struggle. We've spent good chunks of each day just sitting or lying together and feeling the kid's kicks and movements.
  
• I was bewildered by the diagnosis. The only cases of breast cancer in Janet's family are two generations removed - a great aunt and second cousins, all of whom were decades older than she is now. As the cherry on top of this crap sundae, so-called gestational breast cancer is diagnosed in just one of every 3,000 pregnant women. As Janet said to her OB, that's like buying a lottery ticket and finding out that you owe the lottery commission more money.
  
• I'm furious that my wife has to endure this. Less than a year ago we suffered the heartbreak of a miscarriage, we walked on eggshells through the first trimester of this second pregnancy, and now that we've gotten a strong bill of health for the baby, there's a whole new set of difficulties. She's probably going to spend the coming weeks dealing with nausea and exhaustion, and is already worried about losing her hair from the chemo. After the kid is here, Janet isn't sure if she'll have the strength and/or energy to do the simplest of things, like lifting and carrying the car seat. Breastfeeding may very well out of the question, and that by itself has been a big emotional blow for her. She will have a lumpectomy just a few months after giving birth, and will undergo radiation treatment afterward. How much hardship can be dumped upon one person, especially one as giving and kind and compassionate as Janet?  This is probably a good time to mention that "God has a plan" is possibly the absolute WORST thing to say to somebody in this situation. Even if you mean well, you should know that it's okay to just say nothing, rather than to suggest that God doles out cancers and accidents and such just so we'll have obstacles to overcome.

• I am grateful that Janet is in very capable hands. She's undergoing treatment at Greater Baltimore Medical Center, which has become our go-to for medical care. Janet's primary care, asthma and allergy, OB/GYN, and cancer treatment are all at GBMC. We've never had a bad experience there, and all of the doctors, nurses, and administrative staff are incredibly knowledgeable and compassionate. The breast surgeon spent an hour and a half meeting with us, and the oncologist gave us even more of his time. The cancer team at GBMC has gone above and beyond to help us understand why they're treating the disease the way that they are, and to make sure that we're completely comfortable with everything.
   
• I'm worried. "Cancer" is such a loaded word, and it's hard not to obsess over worst-case scenarios. I'll just leave it at that.
   
• Most of all, I am thankful that we have such an incredible support system. In a short amount of time, Janet and I have been overwhelmed with offers of help from family members, friends, coworkers, members of our church...prayers, thoughts, well-wishes, good vibes, and the like are all appreciated. But our friends and loved ones have also come forward with food, personal care items, gifts, and most importantly, their time. We are very lucky to know so many generous and warm people. I know that we wouldn't be able to face this challenge alone, and I'm glad that we don't have to do that.

As I finish this entry late on Friday night, Janet has completed the first of 16 chemotherapy sessions. She's doing well, though we've been led to believe that the side effects won't crop up for a day or two. But just getting started with the treatment plan is important to both of us. We sat in the infusion center for four hours today while she received those all-important cancer-killing drugs via IV, and it assuaged the fear of the unknown. As I keep telling Janet, we've got this.

Brooks Robinson, 2004 Maryland Lottery #44

Brooks Robinson's career high in home runs was 28, coming in his MVP season in 1964. Eddie Murray, who racked up 504 homers in his Hall of Fame career, never hit more than 33 in a single season. Cal Ripken peaked at 34 four-baggers, a number he reached in 1991 en route to his second MVP award. Tonight I braved the cold damp weather and bitter October winds to see Manny Machado (who, I feel the need to remind you, is only 23 years old) hit his 35th home run of the year - his fifth in the last four games - as the O's wrapped up a doubleheader sweep of the Yankees with a 4-3 win in the nightcap. A win in tomorrow's season finale would allow the Birds to end 2015 with a five-game win streak and a break-even record of 81-81. A victory tomorrow afternoon would also possibly deny the Yanks home-field advantage in their wild-card playoff game on Tuesday; they are one game ahead of the Astros, and Houston holds the tiebreaker. If you can't go to the postseason yourself, you might as well play spoiler.

Brooks Robinson, 2009 Topps Legends of the Game #LG-BR

Tonight the Orioles returned to Camden Yards for the first time since playing in an empty stadium on a Wednesday afternoon two weeks ago. They wore special white home jerseys with "Baltimore" emblazoned across the front in orange script. P. A. announcer Ryan Wagner announced each player on the home team as batting or pitching for "Baltimore", instead of for "the Orioles". There were 20,468 fans in attendance, more than you might expect for a Monday night in mid-May against the Blue Jays. The O's won in satisfying fashion, 5-2, thanks to their usual power display - Manny Machado, Chris Davis, and Adam Jones each hit a home run - and another encouraging outing from Ubaldo Jimenez, who whiffed nine Toronto batters in seven innings.

I'm not so naive as to think that one baseball game, or a dozen, or 81, can heal the ills and iniquity in this city. But I'm grateful for the images and sounds that came from Oriole Park this evening.

Brooks Robinson, 2012 Topps Golden Greats #GG-78

Today's odd Orioles face: Brooks Robinson passes a kidney stone in the midst of the fourth inning. Yes, he still gunned the runner out by two steps. That's why the man was the best at what he did.

Brooks Robinson, 2000 Topps Stars #106

It doesn't quite come through in the scan, but the larger, background image of Brooks Robinson on the front of this card has a silvery sheen. It gives an impression of the third baseman as an ice sculpture. A Brooksie ice sculpture would not have been out of place in the Mid-Atlantic yesterday afternoon, as the region was blasted with its first significant snow storm of the year. My wife and I drove smack into the wintry weather on our way home from a weekend visit to her family in Charlotte (hence the lack of updates to this blog since last Wednesday - well, that plus a nasty cold that laid me low on Thursday). As we traveled northbound on I-81 through Virginia, the white stuff began covering the road rather quickly. Near Christiansburg, we saw evidence of three accidents within the span of a few miles, two of them involving tractor trailers. That was enough to convince us to postpone the final 300 or so miles of our trip. By 3:30 Monday afternoon, we were checked in at the lovely Quality Inn in Salem, VA. And so a holiday weekend was extended by a day; we would've rather hunkered down at home for today's day off from work, but we made ourselves comfortable in our hotel room and were grateful to have clear highways to travel when we resumed the drive today. And now, I return you to our regularly scheduled blog nonsense.

Brooks Robinson, 2013 Topps Allen & Ginter Across the Years #ATY-BR

This week I've been featuring cards from a Fairfield repack box that jumped into my hand last weekend at a Target in Charlotte. I've pretty much given up on the repacks that consist of a 50, 100, or 200-card loose assortment, since they're always packed to the gills with junk wax. But the $20 boxes that feature 20 packs of recent-vintage cards still scratch that itch. I can justify buying newish Topps products by telling myself that the money's not going directly to the company (though I'm sure Fairfield is compensating them for their unsold inventory), and a buck a pack is a price I'm willing to pay.

This box consisted of a single pack of 2008 Upper Deck Spectrum, a bunch of 2013 Topps products (Allen & Ginter, Opening Day, Archives, and flagship Series Two), and to my surprise, a few packs of 2014 Topps Heritage. Each box also comes with a randomly-inserted "hit", which in this case was a 2005 Topps Update All-Star Stitches jersey relic of Morgan Ensberg. It doesn't get much more random than that, and the swatch is a lovely deep orange. I also pulled a Craig Gentry autograph from one of the Opening Day packs, which is a nifty thing to get even if I couldn't pick the guy out of a lineup. I filled a few more set needs for Heritage, and got some 2013 Topps Series Two and Opening Day Orioles that I needed. There was also this Brooks Robinson insert from last year's Allen and Ginter, a fortuitous pull from a six-card pack. On the back, it lists some notables that share Brooksie's May 18 birthday, including Pope John Paul II, Frank Capra, Tina Fey, Reggie Jackson, actor Robert Morse, and Superfly Jimmy Snuka. Truly news you can use.

Vintage Fridays: Brooks Robinson, 1961 Topps #10

Just like that, the magic number is five. All it took was the Orioles' first doubleheader sweep of the Yankees in three decades, and a 1-0 Rays win over the Blue Jays. The O's have won 10 of 13 against New York this year, and held them to a single run in 20 innings today. Some time in the next week, they're really going to clinch.

Brooks Robinson, 2011 Topps Lineage #74

Happy 77th birthday to Brooks Robinson, the first, greatest ambassador of Baltimore Orioles baseball.

Brooks Robinson, 2006 Topps Rookie of the Week #9

This card arrived in a plain white envelope today from Randy. I was glad to have it, since 1) it's new to me and 2) it saves me from chasing down an eight-year-old promotional giveaway card on my own. Topps done goofed on this one, going with the 1957 design to harken back to Brooks Robinson's rookie card. The picture, judging from the uniform and Brooks' shabby hair and weathered face, is actually from the mid-1970s - that is, the tail end of Brooksie's career. Apparently that was something of a common problem in this set. Eek.

Brooks Robinson, 2003 Topps Tribute Perennial All-Stars #50

In a few moments I'm heading out for a lovely evening of baseball with my wife. Pregame dinner at C & R Pub in Federal Hill, where my oldest friend Joe is tending bar, followed by the O's and the Jays at Camden Yards. Fingers are crossed in hopes of a competent Bud Norris start, some liveliness from the Baltimore bats (way to hand Dustin McGowan his first win since 2008, guys), and improved defense from young Jonathan Schoop at third base. I realize that he's still learning, but the two unearned runs that saddled Chris Tillman with the loss last night were both on Schoop. He was looking more like Mark Reynolds than Brooks Robinson. But today is another day, and I have faith.

Brooks Robinson, 2003 Fleer Flair Greats #17

For a change of pace, I decided to reach into a box of cards and select tonight's subject at random. First I came up with Kris Foster's 2003 Donruss Team Heroes card, but I'd already used that one back in 2010. I put it back and pulled out this gem. I rather like the elegant, simple design, with the tiny foil-outlined Oriole Bird in the bottom left corner. Adding to the charm is one of the most awkward action photos of Brooks Robinson that I've seen. It looks like he's in mid-throw, mouth hanging agape, right hand curiously chopped off, and stirrups drooping comically. I was looking for random, and I found it.

Brooks Robinson, 1982 Topps K-mart MVPs #5

As you may have noticed, there is no greater balm for baseball blogger writer's block than the birthday post. Well, here's one better: a birthday post about a birthday post. Chris Jaffe of The Hardball Times has posted a list of trivia tidbits about baseball players and their birthdays. Among the things I learned was that Brooks Robinson, born May 18, 1937, somehow played only a dozen games on his special day in the span of his 23-year career. However, he hit safely in all 12 birthday games, the longest such streak in baseball history. His overall birthday stats included a .435 batting average (20-for-46) with a double, a home run, and five runs batted in. He walked twice and struck out twice and hit into only one double play. His best May 18 game was a 1971 contest at the Yankees. Brooksie had just one hit in four tries, but it was a two-run homer off of Fritz Peterson in the fourth inning. It gave the O's a 3-1 lead which they would not relinquish. So I guess you could say that Baltimore's beloved third baseman was able to have his cake and eat it too.

Brooks Robinson, 2013 Panini Prizm #134

If Triple Play is an example of how to get MLB-license-deficient card sets right, I'd say that Prizm is an example of how to get them wrong. It's one thing to airbrush/Photoshop away logos and insignia, leaving blank caps and uniforms. But for some reason, Panini felt it necessary to edit out any and all color. Why couldn't they leave Brooks Robinson's helmet brim and his number 5 orange? We're left with drab, depressing black and gray. It looks like Brooksie's playing for a prison league team or something. They did the same thing with the current Oriole players; I've got Adam Jones and Jim Johnson's cards, and both are wearing plain black headgear with their home whites instead of the tri-color hats that the Birds now wear at home. So I won't be collecting this set, O's aside.

Vintage Fridays: Frank Robinson, Hank Bauer, and Brooks Robinson, 1967 Topps #1

I look at this card - this wonderful, triumphant card - and can't help taking a flight of fancy. After all, there are a few guys on the 2013 Orioles who compare pretty favorably to the cornerstones of that 1966 World Champion club.

First, there's the slugger. Frank Robinson captured the American League Triple Crown, the Most Valuable Player award, and the World Series MVP to boot. You probably know the numbers by now: .316 AVG, 49 HR, 122 RBI. He also topped the league with 122 hits, a .410 on-base percentage, and a .637 slugging percentage to boot.

Chris Davis isn't really a threat for the Triple Crown, since Miguel Cabrera is a remorseless hitting machine, but he's still leading the world with 35 home runs and a slugging percentage right around .700. He's driven in 88 runs in 93 games, and even with a recent cold streak, he's batting a strong .312. If you're curious, Frank was batting .320 and slugging .613 with 25 homers and 64 RBI through 93 games played in '66.

Hank Bauer paid immediate dividends when the O's hired him as manager prior to the 1964 season. He took a talented but inexperienced team and led them to 97 and 94 wins in his first two seasons on the job. But life was tough in the top-heavy American League, and the Birds finished in third each year. 97 W's did the trick in year number three, and before you could say "sweep", the Orioles had dispatched Koufax, Drysdale, and the Dodgers in a four-game World Series.

When Buck Showalter accepted the O's managerial position in August 2010, the team's immediate hope was to stop the bleeding. At 32-73, they hadn't even won a third of their first 105 games. Buck seemed to provide an instant shot in the arm, as the Orioles went 34-23 down the stretch to avoid the near-inevitable 100-loss mark. They weren't able to carry that momentum into the 2011 season, as injuries and inconsistent pitching left the team mired in last place at 69-93. The Birds flipped the script in 2012, winning 93 games and eking out a postseason berth. They were bounced in the Division Series, losing an agonizing 3-1 elimination game to the Yankees, but for the first time in ages, there seemed to be a strong foundation for optimism. Now, it's the third full season under Buck, and the O's are right in the thick of another American League East dogfight. At 52-42, they're two games ahead of last year's pace, yet they're stuck in third place, five games behind the resurgent Red Sox and a game back of the pesky Rays. Will they match 2012's torrid second half stretch run and return to the postseason, taking a shot at Baltimore's first World Series in three decades? Time will tell.

Brooks Robinson was the homegrown star, a solid hitter with some pop in his bat and an otherworldly defensive presence at third base. He'd already won the A. L. MVP in 1964, but he gladly settled in as a complimentary piece to that other Robinson. He batted .269 with 35 doubles, 23 home runs, and 100 RBI, captured his seventh straight Gold Glove at the hot corner, and was even named All-Star Game MVP for his three hits in a losing effort.

This is where the comparison falters a bit. Manny Machado just celebrated his 21st birthday, so it's not altogether fair to hold him up against a Hall of Famer who collected 2,848 hits and 16 Gold Gloves and inspired an entire generation of Baltimoreans to name their kids "Brooks". But Robinson didn't bat over .300 at 21, as Manny has through the first 94 games of 2013. And Brooks never hit 39 doubles in a full season, much less a bit over half of one. And as for amazing defense, plays like this help the imagination to run wild:

Some enterprising person already compiled an animated image juxtaposing Manny's incredible throw with the one made by Brooksie to retire Lee May in the 1970 World Series.

There's a lot of baseball yet to be played, and the odds don't especially favor the O's in a charge to and through the postseason, but it doesn't sound as insane as it did even a year ago. That's all I could ever ask for.

Brooks Robinson, 1993 Action Packed All-Stars #120

Today is Brooks Robinson's 76th birthday, but everything else about this day made me feel like baseball is a cruel, pointless, stupid game. Yes, I was at Camden Yards for Jim Johnson and Darren O'Day's six-run ninth-inning meltdown; why do you ask?

Brooks Robinson, 2013 PunkRockPaint Old Hoss 100 #43

Yesterday my very own complete factory set of the Old Hoss 100 arrived. As I was flipping through the cards, it dawned on me that my very first purchase of a 2013 card product wasn't Topps, but the hard work of a very talented fellow blogger. That makes me quite happy, especially since it's a legitimately well-done and entertaining set.

A little background: PunkRockPaint is the sporadically-updated blog of Travis, a Padres fan and an excellent artist. Old Hoss refers to the parody Twitter account of Charley "Old Hoss" Radbourn, the Hall of Fame 19th-century pitcher who was famous for his 59-win, 73-complete-game 1884 season with the Providence Grays. Hoss was also a famed raconteur, and the @OldHossRadbourn account plays it to the hilt. He's usually scoffing at the sissification of the modern game, making offhand references to his scores of illegitimate children, or skewering sports media coverage. In that vein, "Hoss" spent last December commenting upon ESPN's Hall of 100, a list of the purported 100 greatest baseball players of all time. Travis was inspired to create a limited-edition set of cards featuring those 100 players, with "Radbourn"'s comments on the card backs. As you can see, it's a beautiful sepia-toned set, similar in size and presentation to the old tobacco cards. It doesn't even suffer for the Photoshopping that removes or distorts cap and jersey insignias, in my opinion.

I'm glad that I was quick enough on the draw to snap up a set, as they're sold out now. The box that the cards were packed in is serial numbered 8 of 84. It promises a complete 100-card set plus 5 "rarities". The rarities include randomly-inserted and serial-numbered cards of ESPN's 25 honorable mentions, as well as alternate photo parallel cards of base set players. My rarities were #104 Dave Winfield, #106 Whitey Ford, #110 Harry Heilmann, and #122 Edgar Martinez (each numbered to 10), as well as #72 Bert Blyleven modeling his "I Love to Fart" shirt (numbered to 5). Glorious.

There are four Orioles in the set. In addition to the Brooks Robinson card I'm showing here, you've got #31 Cal Ripken, Jr., #65 Eddie Murray, and #89 Jim Palmer. (Frank Robinson is pictured with the Cincinnati Reds.) I'm glad to add them to my team collection. I'll let Old Hoss have the final word: