(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Top Comments: RIP Brooks Robinson (1937-2023) [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-05 Here at Top Comments we strive to nourish community by rounding up some of the site's best, funniest, most mojo'd & most informative commentary, and we depend on your help!! If you see a comment by another Kossack that deserves wider recognition, please send it either to topcomments at gmail or to the Top Comments group mailbox by 9:30pm Eastern. Please please please include a few words about why you sent it in as well as your user name (even if you think we know it already :-)), so we can credit you with the find! I don’t pay much attention to team sports. When we lived in Pennsylvania, I did attend a couple of Erie Seawolves games, but I viewed these as social events; watching the games themselves was just not that interesting. Being a native of Baltimore, I was indoctrinated early on in learning to cheer for the Orioles and the Colts. I tried my best, but it didn’t stick. My father, who had serious heart disease for many years, was told by his cardiologist that he could attend baseball games in-person, but not football games, as the latter were too exciting and might induce a heart attack. One of his great joys was being able to attend one of the World Series games in 1966; the Orioles won the series that year. (My father’s birthday was yesterday—he would have turned 109 if he were still alive.) For many years after I left home, I would occasionally keep track of how the teams were doing, if they were doing well enough to be in contention for a championship, but I don’t even do that anymore. The Orioles winning the American League East championship last week came as a complete surprise to me. Despite my lack of interest in sports, I would watch games on TV with my father, and between that and the schoolyard, I learned the basic rules of the game. The span of years ranging from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s was something of a glory period for the beloved O’s, winning the American League pennant 6 times during this period, as well as three World Series. I can even remember a lot of the players from those days: Boog Powell (1st), Mark Belanger (SS—brilliant fielder, lousy hitter), Paul Blair (CF), Dave McNally (P), Frank Robinson (LF), and, of course, the other Robinson, Brooks Robinson (3rd). If you’re ever in Baltimore, never say that someone other than Brooks Robinson was the best 3rd baseman to have ever lived, because you night start a fight. He won 16 Golden Gloves during his career, and he became known locally as “the vacuum cleaner” for making what seemed like impossible catches. He was legend. A friend of the family whose wife was pregnant with their first baby decided that, if it was a boy (there was no way to know ahead of time in those days), he would be named Brooks. This turned out to be a problem. Their family was Catholic. Proper Catholics name their children after saints or persons mentioned in the Bible. Our friend’s mother said the baby had to have a saint’s name. So, they compromised. When the boy was born, he was given a saint’s name as his first name, while Brooks was his middle name, and the family simply called him by his middle name. But this was emblematic of the kind of enthusiasm Brooks Robinson inspired. So it was a little sad to learn that Brooks Robinson died on September 26 of this year, just two days before the Orioles won the AL East championship. A wave of nostalgia flooded over me for those days when I was dutifully watching the Orioles on TV with my father, and Brooks made yet another amazing play. Brooks had a good long life, so there should be no regrets there. But as my old heroes pass, it reminds me that I, too, am getting older, and I wonder, in a few decades, who is going to be around to remember any of this? Comments are below the fold. Top Comments (October 5, 2023): Highlighted by pnwskeptic: This comment by blue aardvark in Hunter’s front page post on Trump’s latest outrage—sharing nuclear sub secrets with a Mar-a-lago guest. Top Mojo (October 4, 2023): [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/5/2197669/-Top-Comments-RIP-Brooks-Robinson-1937-2023?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/