254 - Frank Robinson is Underrated (Texans in the Hall)

Frank Robinson was born in Beaumont, Texas, raised in Oakland, California, and established himself among baseball's most feared hitter and fierest competitors for over a decade. Robinson had over 2,900 hits, hit 586 home runs and drove in over 1,800 runs over 21 big league seasons that included two part-time years as Cleveland's player-manager. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982. 

Links: Frank Robinson's career stats at Retrosheet: https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/R/Probif103.htm. George Brett's pine-tar incident: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbEHAsZxRYo. 

Sources: Sources for this episode include and among others, Lou Smith, "Reds Trade Off Frank Robinson," The Cincinnati Enquirer, December 10, 1965; Paul Ritter, "Fan Opinion Varies on Robby's Trade, The Cincinnati Enquirer, December 10, 1965; Maxwell Kates, "Frank Robinson," https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/Frank-Robinson/, and available sources cited there; Stats and box scores at Baseball Reference and Retrosheet.

Errata: Joe Adcock's last season in Milwaukee was 1962. Eddie Mathews hit 32 home runs for the Braves in 1965. Henry Aaron hit the same.

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