Brooks Robinson’s gold rush

Brooks Robinson with his Gold Gloves

Brooks Robinson wins his 16th straight – and final – Gold Glove 50 years ago today.

No one comes close to matching the record for third basemen set by the Baltimore Orioles’ Hall of Famer.

The next highest totals?

Ten by both Mike Schmidt of the Philadelphia Phillies and St. Louis’ Nolan Arenado, and eight by former Phillie Scott Rolen.

Brooks Robinson during the 1970 World Series

Like Robinson, Schmidt and Rolen are in the Hall of Fame. Arenado is on track to one day join them in Cooperstown, but – at only 34 years old and with two years and $42 million remaining on his contract with St. Louis – he is nowhere near retirement.

Robinson precedes all of them and, of course, sets the standard of excellence.

“My first year in big league camp, I saw him taking ground balls,” former Orioles second baseman Davey Johnson once says of Robinson.

“It looked like they hit 100 ground balls at Brooksie. His uniform was all dirty. I went up to him and said, ‘Hey, Brooksie, you got seven Gold Gloves, why are you taking all those ground balls? And he said to me, ‘Son, how do you think I got those seven Gold Gloves?’ ”

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