The Year After Somebody Decided He Was Done

Bill DeWitt traded him and explained it by saying Frank Robinson was "an old 30."

Robinson was in fact 30, coming off a 33-homer season. The Reds sent him to Baltimore for a starting pitcher and two spare parts, and the reason given out loud, in print, was age.

What happened next is one of the great answers in the history of the sport. In 1966 Robinson led the American League in batting average, home runs, and RBI. He also led it in runs, total bases, on-base percentage, and slugging. The MVP vote was unanimous, which made him the first player ever to win the award in both leagues. The Orioles won the first World Series in franchise history, a four-game sweep of the Dodgers, and he was MVP of that too. He did all of it on a knee whose tendons he stretched in May and never stopped playing on.

Here's the part that puts it in perspective. Robinson never led a league in any single Triple Crown category in any other season of his career. He led all three at once, in a league he had never played in, at 30 years old, the year after somebody decided he was done.

And the stance was always the story. He curled his head and shoulders out over the plate and let pitchers decide what to do about it. They hit him 198 times, ninth most in baseball history. He got up every time and hit the ball hard somewhere.