Fifteen-year-old Mike Sparaco and his buddy, Bill Wheatley, had made plans to meet two girls for miniature golf on Sunday, May 8, 1966. Instead, they got stood up. Not a great feeling, but it happens. On the teenagers’ dejected walk home, however, a greater fate—there is no other word for it—intervened.

While cutting through the parking lot at Memorial Stadium, a roar erupted, causing them both to glance up. Suddenly, fans in the top row of the bleachers began yelling and gesturing toward them.

“We thought, ‘What’s going on?’” Sparaco recalled in a 2016 interview with The Sun. “Bill said, ‘Maybe somebody hit one out.’ I said, ‘Great, maybe we’ll get a new baseball and play with it.’”

The first car he peaked under was a white Cadillac and there was the ball, almost but not quite in reach. “No sooner had I crawled under to get it than all these people came running over. A guy with a transistor radio shouted, ‘Frank Robinson just hit that!’”

Robinson’s blast, off Cleveland’s Louis Tiant, who had tossed three straight shutouts to start the season, was like a scene from The Natural. Departing Memorial Stadium high above the leftfield line, the tiny sphere cleared the Colts’ press box before bouncing over a fence and rolling to a stop 540 feet from home plate.

The Orioles needed to sweep that day’s twin bill to vault into a first-place tie with Cleveland. Buoyed by 11,000 youngsters on hand for Safety Patrol Day, a record crowd of 49,516 watched the O’s take the opener, 8-2, behind Robinson’s first home run of the day.

Paced by his epic first-inning salvo off Tiant, they won again, 8-3, in the second contest. The feat so inspired the city that the team’s booster club, the Orioles Advocates, commemorated it. During a pregame ceremony a week later, they raised an orange flag with black lettering at the spot where the ball exited the park. It simply read “HERE” and flew until the O’s final season on 33rd Street.

More importantly, the moonshot put the American League—and Baltimore, then a Colts town—on notice that the O’s, known for their pitching and defense, were now a potent offensive force as well.

The O’s had acquired the veteran slugger in the offseason from Cincinnati, where Reds’ owner Bill DeWitt described Robinson as “not a young 30” after the deal. The words haunted DeWitt, who would sell the team at year’s end, and lit a fire in Robinson. He smashed a home run in each of his first three games in his new uniform. Still, this one was different.

As Robinson jogged to right field to start the next inning, public-address man Bill LeFevre announced the HR was the first ever hit completely out of Memorial Stadium. During a nearly minute-long standing ovation, Robinson tipped his cap several times.

The moment went beyond baseball. Not only had he spent a decade in Cincinnati before being told to pack his bags, he and his wife, Barbara, had confronted prejudice in buying a house in Baltimore, their adopted, racially diverse, but segregated city.

On the 50th anniversary of the mythic blast, Robinson called the ovation a seminal moment in his career. Hearing the cheering, the slugger told The Sun, “I felt like I really belonged in Baltimore.”

Jackie Robinson was venerated for the abuse he silently withstood while breaking baseball’s color line. Frank Robinson, whose rookie year overlapped Jackie Robinson’s last season, was not a turn-the-other-cheek ballplayer.

“Bad trades are part of baseball—now who can forget Frank Robinson for Milt Pappas, for God’s sake?”—Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon’s character) in Bull Durham.

In early December 1965, when baseball news typically sprinkled the sports section like light snow, the Orioles and Reds announced a swap that would rank among the most consequential in the history of professional sports. So much so that, like Boston’s short-sighted sale of a certain larger-than-life Pigtown native to the Yankees, it became a part of baseball lore.

In Cincinnati, DeWitt framed it as forward-looking. Milt Pappas had won 16 games in ’63 and ’64 for the O’s. He was 26 and the team’s all-time winningest pitcher. The Orioles threw in Jack Baldschun, a solid reliever, and untested outfielder Dick Simpson. Suffice to say, none played up to the Reds’ hopes.

Robinson belonged in another class altogether. With guys named Mays, Mantle, Aaron, and Clemente. He had won Rookie-of-the-Year honors, an MVP trophy, and carried Cincinnati to the ’61 pennant. The year prior to the trade, in an era dominated by pitching, he mashed 33 homers and drove in 113 runs. DeWitt, however, a devotee of former Brooklyn Dodger GM Branch Rickey, believed “it was better to trade a player a year early than a year late.” He also maintained his club needed pitching, which was true. Left unmentioned was DeWitt’s contentious relationship with his star.

In Baltimore, the reaction was jubilation.

“Cannons at the four corners!” Harry Dalton, the O’s director of player personnel, shouted upon completing the deal, referring to the power-packed foursome of first baseman Boog Powell, third baseman Brooks Robinson, left fielder Curt Blefary, and the new slugger in right.

Considered one of the sharpest baseball executives ever, Dalton understood how Robinson would impact the O’s lineup. Batting behind him, Brooks and Boog drove in 209 runs. Behind them, Blefary added 23 home runs and another 64 RBIs. Frank? He won the Triple Crown (.316, 49 HRs, 122 RBI) and the MVP—the only player to win the award in both leagues until Shohei Ohtani accomplished the feat in 2024.

The Orioles took the pennant by a landslide nine games. Then, in one of the most dominating World Series performances ever, the O’s swept the favored Los Angeles Dodgers. Robinson drilled a first-inning HR in the opener out west. Then another in the series-clincher here.

“Sometimes, you can point to one incident in a season as a big one,” veteran O’s reliever Moe Drabowsky recalled  to longtime Sun sportswriter John Eisenberg. “To me, when Frank hit that ball out of the stadium off Tiant, it galvanized the whole team. It was like, ‘We’re going to be tough to beat this year.’”

Jackie Robinson was venerated for the abuse he silently withstood while breaking baseball’s color line. Frank Robinson, whose rookie year overlapped Jackie Robinson’s last season, was not a turn-the-other-cheek ballplayer. He leaned over home plate and defied pitchers to throw inside. Hit 198 times in his career, he gained a reputation for dusting himself off and getting his revenge with a retaliatory home run. (Don Drysdale, who Robinson homered off in his first at bat of the ’66 Series, was a familiar nemesis.)

Even at 51 in an old-timers’ game, after being accidentally knocked down by former big-league pitcher Jim Bibby, Robinson dug back in and put one over the fence. Similarly, Robinson was a menace on the basepaths, breaking up double plays like a linebacker. Early in his career, a hard, spikes-up slide into third base led to a scrap with Braves’ Hall of Famer Eddie Matthews, who blackened his eye with a right cross. Robinson had to leave the field, but, true to form, returned for the second game of the doubleheader and responded with a home run and decisive catch.

He had played in segregated environments in Utah and South Carolina in the minor leagues, places where he wasn’t allowed to eat in the same restaurants or stay in the same hotels as his white teammates. Those experiences and others may have hardened his exterior as a young ballplayer.

But, raised in hardscrabble Oakland, California, he was never a go-along-to-get-along type. Neither, coincidentally, were two guys he played ball with growing up—Bill Russell, who became the first Black head coach in the NBA in 1966—and Curt Flood, the Black centerfielder who challenged baseball’s reserve clause and set the stage for free agency in the 1970s.

Robinson, of course, would become baseball’s first Black manager with Cleveland in 1975—and win AL manager of the year honors for helming the O’s 1989 “Why Not?” run. One thing Robinson let his new teammates know was that he didn’t believe in fraternizing with the enemy. The O’s were a little too congenial for his liking.

“If somebody was talking on the field with one of the opposing players, Frank would say, ‘Why do you go out and talk to those guys when in five minutes, you’re going want to kick their butt?’” Powell says. “‘Take them out for dinner after the game. They’re not your friends on the field.’ And he was right and we stuck to that.”

Robinson, who did not lack for a sense of humor despite his fierceness between the lines, also instituted and served as the presiding judge of the team’s Kangaroo Court. With a mop over his head and a broom handle as his gavel, Robinson dispensed fines for mental errors and botched routine plays.

“We only did it after games we won so there’d be no hard feelings. If you threw to the wrong base, it cost you a dollar,” Powell says. “It wasn’t the dollar. It was that someone was paying attention [to your mistake] and you knew it. That was the edge Frank brought to the team.”

“What did Frank mean to the Baltimore Orioles franchise?” Jim Palmer mused, phoning into a MASN show shortly after his ex-teammate passed in 2019. “He put us on the map.”

In fact, Drabowsky’s prediction that the O’s would be “tough to beat” in ’66 after Robinson’s parking lot shot proved an understatement. During Frank Robinson’s playing career in Baltimore, the O’s were the best team in pro sports and maybe the best baseball club ever.

From 1966 to 1971, they won 100 games three times, captured four pennants, and took a second World Series in 1970. (Not incidentally, Drabowsky, who tossed 6-plus innings of scoreless relief in Game 1 of the ’66 Series, played a significant role on several of those clubs.)

To be clear, the Orioles were a very good baseball team before Robinson came over. They finished third in the 10 team AL in ’64 and ’65. And they didn’t just have “cannons at the corners” in ’66. They had Hall of Famers at third in Brooks and at short in Luis Aparicio. And future All-Stars Paul Blair and Davey Johnson stepping into full-time roles in center and at second.

The O’s themselves weren’t sure they needed Frank Robinson. A fourth future Hall of Famer, 20-year-old Jim Palmer, was set to join 23-year-old standout Dave McNally in the rotation.

“When the trade was announced, I was sorry to see Milt go,” Powell recalls from Florida as the 2026 preseason gets underway. “He was a friend, teammate, and a genuinely good pitcher.”

Indeed, Pappas finished with 209 career victories. “I respected Frank, we all did,” Powell says. “But we didn’t know Frank.”

The devotion the team receives today can be traced back to the heyday of Frank and Brooks and that first, unlikely championship 60 years ago.

Robinson had carried a rep in Cincinnati as a difficult guy. That changed quickly. As far as his new teammates were concerned, it was love at first sight. Robinson later commented the city might not have been ready for him, a reference to the housing bias, “but the Orioles were.”

“The day he arrived at spring training, he hit one after another into the palm trees,” Powell says. “I still remember telling Etch [catcher Andy Etchebarren], standing next to me, ‘We’ve taken a step up.’ Frank fit in right from the start. We liked the way he was and didn’t want him to be anyone other than who he was.”

Robinson’s issues with the Reds management stemmed from racial prejudice, salary disputes, and his outspoken personality. Pete Rose later said the club gave him grief for becoming too friendly with Robinson and Vada Pinson, another Black ballplayer. When fans and the Cincinnati media gave Robinson a hard time during the ’65 slump, it convinced DeWitt he could move him without too much blowback.

Meanwhile, Baltimore Afro-American Hall of Fame baseball writer Sam Lacy, civil rights groups, and Black fans had pushed the O’s for years to sign Black players. For their part, the Orioles acknowledged they hoped Robinson would appeal to the city’s “Negro” community.

The team’s leader when he arrived was the guy whose last name he shared. Brooks Robinson’s soft-spoken modesty and civility endeared him to everyone—never more so than when Frank Robinson joined the club.

A six-time All-Star, Brooks had earned his own MVP in 1964. The addition of another superstar, a Black slugger who’d been labeled “a troublemaker” by his previous club, could’ve potentially disrupted the team’s chemistry. But while Frank dealt with remnants of legal segregation in Baltimore, his acceptance in the O’s clubhouse was a non issue. (On the cusp of the World Series, Mayor Theodore McKeldin appealed to bar owners to ignore state law allowing them to ban Black residents: “I find it a distasteful piece of irony that I must make this plea in light of the fact that without Frank Robinson, a person who could be excluded by such business, we would probably have no World Series.”)

In his 1988 autobiography, Extra Innings, Frank said race relations on those Orioles teams were unlike any other club he played for. Brooks and Frank dressed next to each other for the entirety of their six years together in Baltimore, setting the tone for the team. The pair became known as the “Robinson Brothers” and after their playing careers, made a Lite Beer commercial playing off their names and similarities, clarifying, however, “we are not identical twins.”

The images of Brooks and Frank—one from Little Rock, Arkansas, the site of pitched segregation battles, the other from the birthplace of the Black Panthers—standing shoulder to shoulder, hitting in tandem in the heart of O’s batting order spoke volumes during the Civil Rights era.

“I suspect Brooks was the key reason why, for the first time in my 14 years of professional baseball, Black players and white players had drinks together and meals together when we were on the road,” he wrote. “Not every single night, but two or three times on most road trips. None of the players really invited me, Paul Blair, or Sam Bowens to join them. But Brooks might ask me where I was going after a game, and not knowing the restaurants in most American cities, I might say I wasn’t sure. Then Brooks would say something like, ‘Well, Boog, Jerry [Adair], Curt, and I are going over to this restaurant.’”

Winning helps, and Orioles fans responded in kind, embracing the club as never before. The devotion the team receives today can be traced back to the heyday of Frank and Brooks and that first, unlikely championship 60 years ago.

Jim Melonas, whose son, Mark, raised a replica HERE flag at the old Memorial Stadium site—now a recreational field—on the 50th anniversary of Robinson’s home run, grew up in Hamilton. He had started his freshman year at the University of Maryland when the O’s met the Dodgers. He and his friends squeezed into a VW Beetle to greet the team at then-Friendship Airport after they won the first two games in L.A. Then they followed the team to Memorial Stadium.

“Somehow, we got stuck between two of their buses, and were waved into the team parking lot,” Melonas, who went on to a career in business, enthusiastically recalls. “We ended up helping carry some of the players’ bags. It was one of the best moments of my life.”

Though there was an encore. Days later, a girlfriend invited him to Game Four. Her father had an extra ticket. “Frank Robinson’s home run sailed two rows over our heads in left field.”

“Do I remember Frank Robinson coming to Baltimore?” asks Rev. Alvin Hathaway, who grew up with Elijah Cummings in West Baltimore and recently led the restoration of Thurgood Marshall’s elementary school. “I was at City College High School from 1966 to 1969. Those were the Orioles’ hottest years. I worked at Memorial Stadium part-time. Not only do I remember Frank Robinson, I was selling popcorn when Louis Tiant threw that ball that he knocked out of the park.”

Hathaway highlights how accessible Robinson was, as well as the city’s other pro athletes. “You’d see him and his wife, Barbara, at Cross Keys, around town. They were a regal couple. That era of sports figures were community-minded people. He embodied it.”

Hathaway also notes Baltimore was a Colts’ town prior to ’66 in the city’s white—and Black communities. For good reason. “They won championships, and had personalities like Lenny Moore, Jim Parker, Willie Richardson, John Mackey, Lenny Lyles. When Frank came in, this was a homerun guy, and you coupled him with Paul Blair, and things started to shift in terms of African Americans being attentive to the team.”

Academics were important at City College, but so were sports, Hathaway continues, adding he worked 15 to 20 ballgames at Memorial Stadium a year. He carried popcorn because it was light.

“I wanted to see the game,” he says. “I was on left field side when Frank stepped in against Tiant, who came up with that big windup. It was tense already when he threw that pitch, and man, and the next thing, all you heard was ‘pop!’ Everybody turned their head. I dropped my tray. I couldn’t believe how hard he had hit that ball. I still can’t.”

This article first appeared in our April 2026 issue. If you connected with it, consider becoming a print subscriber. 

ven though he’s wearing enemy colors, Ed Soth is greeted the same way he usually is when he walks into Robbie’s First Base—with some good-natured ribbing.

“We’re going to stop letting you in here with that hat,” says Robbie Davis Jr., half of what might be the most well-known Senior-Junior tandem in the world of Baltimore sports . . . memorabilia. “How’d you get to be a Yankees fan?”

The conversation that ensues is similar to ones that take place in bars, at barbershops, and during ballgames every day: a group of old friends shooting the breeze about sports. The fact that it happens to be taking place in what is likely the world’s only sports memorabilia/mail service store just adds to the fun.

When Robbie Davis Sr., 71, opened the store in this small Lutherville strip mall in 1989, he had no idea that one day he’d be working alongside his sons, Robbie Jr., 43, and Matthew, 32. He didn’t know that the business would morph from dealing primarily with FedEx and UPS packages to making deals for Frank Robinson and Johnny Unitas autographs. He certainly couldn’t have imagined that the family would star in an ABC reality series and be featured in a Netflix show scheduled to drop this summer.

The exchange going down is exactly what has attracted television producers, audiences, and, most importantly, regular old customers to Robbie’s.

“I grew up at the old stadium, used to sneak in all the time,” says Soth, who often comes in to send packages and stays to hang out. “Want to hear a funny story?”

It’s a rhetorical question—everyone at Robbie’s is always up for a laugh.

“One day I was there, I’m 11 years old, and I’m sitting in the stands and Mantle is in the field,” Soth says. “Ball is hit, comes right to me, and I reach over and grab [it]. Ball hits me in the hand and falls to the [warning] track. Swear to God, Mantle walks over, picks the ball up, looks at me, and I think he’s gonna toss it up to me. That sonofabitch turned and walked away.”

Sitting at his cluttered desk behind the counter, Senior, as many people call him, lets out a belly laugh. From his slightly less messy desk a few feet away, Junior does the same.

“We have a lot of people who just come in and talk sports,” Junior says. “We get 85-year-old grandmas in here on a Monday morning talking Ravens. They’ll say, ‘Did you see that play that Lamar made?’ I can’t believe my ears. That’s what makes it cool.”

Robbie Davis Sr. grew up in West Baltimore, where, as he likes to remind people, he was a “really good” baseball player at Edmondson-Westside High School.

“I always tell my son that even though he got signed to a pro contract, I was better than him,” he says. “And he can’t refute it, because I’m the only one who’s seen us both play.”

After graduating, he served as a combat medic in the Army before going into the car business. At one point, he co-owned 12 dealerships in Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Among them were All-Star Dodge and All-Star Chevrolet on Route 40. Orioles’ legends Brooks Robinson and Eddie Murray were among the athletes that did commercials for the dealerships, and Davis developed friendships with several guys on the team. When the O’s went on road trips, Davis would occasionally house-sit for Murray.

“Eddie Murray knew me before I knew who he was,” Junior says. “To me he was just a guy who was friends with my dad.”

One of Senior’s partners at the dealership collected baseball cards, and he took note when the man made some money buying and selling them. When he left the car business and opened a postal services store in Catonsville, then another in Lutherville, Senior put out a few boxes of baseball cards on the weekends.

Quickly, he realized that the Topps were topping his sales. He began buying and selling other brands that were hot at the time, like Upper Deck, and closed the Catonsville store to focus on the one in Lutherville.

 

“. . . THE BEST PART WAS GETTING TO BE AROUND PEOPLE THAT WERE AS PASSIONATE ABOUT COLLECTING MEMORABILIA AS WE ARE.”

 

“You never have a business where you can make money right away,” he says. “Well, the first month we opened up we were in the black.”

Perhaps his biggest challenge was keeping his sons from playing with his inventory. Where Senior saw an investment, Junior saw a pastime.

“He would buy all these unopened boxes and tell me, ‘Don’t open them,’” Junior recalls. “He would put them in our house in this room, and of course, I’m a little kid, so I’d be in there opening the packs because that’s what kids do. It’s no fun to just sit there and look at a box.”

A baseball addict from a young age, Junior played center field in college and was signed by the Milwaukee Brewers. When his career fizzled out in the minor leagues, he began working with his father in the store. As Robbie’s grew, the Davises began buying and selling all kinds of sports memorabilia: jerseys, autographed baseballs, seats from the old Memorial Stadium and Cole Field House. One of the most expensive items they acquired was a Babe Ruth signed baseball for $20,000. They later sold it for a tidy profit.

As their reputation continued to grow, more and more athletes started stopping by the store. Al Bumbry has been friends with Senior since they met in the mid-’80s. The Orioles Hall of Famer, who was awarded a Bronze Star for his service in the Army during the Vietnam War, still drops in often.

“The store presents a very social, laidback, easygoing atmosphere,” says Bumbry, the 1973 American League Rookie of the Year and a member of Baltimore’s 1983 World Series championship team. “People don’t feel pressured there because Bob’s a people person. Once he connects with you and becomes friends with you, he’s one of those guys that I would take in the foxhole with me.”

Lewis Brown was a 15-year-old kid when he first went to Robbie’s.

“Senior, he likes to take chances on people,” he says. “I didn’t grow up the richest, so sometimes I’d be in there and I’d go, ‘Mom, I want to get this,’ and she’d say, ‘Well I don’t have the money for it.’ There was a Barry Bonds-signed baseball. It was like a hundred and some dollars. He was like, ‘Just take it, and when you get the money just come in and pay for it.’ Ain’t nobody does that.”

It took Brown, now 35, a few weeks to scrape together the money. When he returned to the store, Senior offered him a job. He’s been working there ever since. When he was trying to save $10,000 for a down payment on a house, Senior asked how he was going to do it.

“I was like, ‘I don’t know. I’ll figure it out,’” Brown says. “He goes, ‘I’ll lend you the money and you can just pay me back when you get it.’ That’s the type of guy he is.”

In 2010, the producers of the reality show Pawn Stars contacted the Davises with an idea. They wanted to film a series about the business and its cast of characters. The core four in the show would be Robbie Sr., Robbie Jr., Brown, and Robbie Reier, another longtime employee. There was only one problem: way too many Robbies. Thus, Senior became Senior, Junior became Junior, Brown became “Sweet Lou,” and the then-baby-faced Reier became “Shaggy.”

In 12 episodes of Ball Boys, the guys goofed on each other, debated sports, negotiated with buyers and sellers, and interacted with greats from the sports world. They played basketball with former University of Michigan Fab Fiver Jalen Rose. Hall of Fame quarterback Warren Moon fired footballs at them. The legendary running back Jim Brown came to the store, but of all the sports royalty they met, baseball’s hit king, Pete Rose, was their favorite.

After shooting a segment, Rose asked for a restaurant recommendation for lunch. When Senior told him the production company would only pay a pittance for their food, Rose whipped $10,000 cash out of his pocket.

“He’s the kind of guy that if you go to a bar you want to hang out with,” Senior says.

When Sweet Lou asked for a personalized autograph, Rose wrote, “To Lou, you big fat piece of shit.”

“I loved that,” Brown says.

The show ran for just one season in 2012, but it was rebroadcast for years after that and is still available on ABC’s app. It raised the store’s profile both locally and nationally—they still get customers who say they heard of Robbie’s from Ball Boys.

“It was awesome,” Junior says. “I liked being on TV, but the best part was getting to be around people that were as passionate about collecting memorabilia as we are. We met people from all around the country, and we got to share our stories.”

Bob Windsor, aka Burger King Bob, is milling about the store, going back and forth with Senior about . . .something or other. The two are old friends. They get together on Sundays to watch football at Windsor’s house, where he makes sure Senior always has chips to snack on and Hennessy to wash them down.

An avid collector, he’s bought everything from a Babe Ruth-autographed baseball to Michael Jordan’s shoes at Robbie’s. But the products aren’t what keep him coming back.

“If there was a pot belly stove and an old dog, you’d be there for hours every day,” says Windsor, whose nickname stems from his job as a “financial guy” for several Burger King franchises. “It’s that homey.”

That’s never changed at Robbie’s, but the preferences of memorabilia consumers are ever-evolving. After a down period in the ’90s and 2000s, cards are back in vogue. And not just baseball cards. These days, Pokémon is as popular as Paul Molitor.

“I had a kid buy two $8 packs and he got a $700 card in there,” Junior says. “That’s what these cards are all about now. It’s all about the gamble.”

That being said, there are some athletes whose appeal is timeless in Baltimore. Cal Ripken Jr., Brooks Robinson, Gary Williams, and Ray Lewis items always sell quickly. But there’s one athlete whose popularity Junior says is unprecedented.

“Nothing’s been like Lamar,” he says of the Ravens quarterback. “[Jackson] has been the biggest craze that we’ve seen in this business since we’ve been open. People can’t get enough of him.”

Although the Davises are hometown fans—they live and die with the Orioles and the Ravens—and love sports memorabilia, the business requires a sort of cold lack of sentimentality. Anything they acquire could be gone the next moment.

“People say, ‘Is this for sale?’” Senior says. “I say, ‘Come on, if it’s got a price tag on it, it’s for sale.’”

Still, there are a few items in which they seem to take special pride. Near Senior’s desk hangs a signed photo of Orioles Mike Morgan and Fred Lynn from the mid-’80s. Lynn’s note reads, “To Bob, the second-best ballplayer I know.”

“That’s because I always told him I was as good as him,” Senior says, chuckling.

Above Junior’s desk is another framed photo, this one with Lynn and Eddie Murray standing over Senior, who is sitting in a chair with his then-eight-year-old son, Robbie Jr., on his lap.

Neither of those items have a price tag.

When the beloved Brooks Robinson, now 82 years old—a Baltimore treasure who hears “the greatest third baseman of all-time,” whenever anyone introduces him—arrived at Frederick Douglass High School on Tuesday morning, he saw three students walking outside. The kind soul he is, he figured he’d introduce himself.

“I gain a little humility every day I walk this earth,” Robinson said, starting to recount the story. “I said, ‘Hi, I’m Brooks Robinson.'”

The kids were probably just 70 years younger than him. And curious why the white-haired man wearing a blue blazer, collared shirt, and white pants was heading in the direction of the new baseball field behind the school.

“They’re naming a field after me,” Mr. Robinson said.

“After you?”

“Yeah.”

“Then they just kind of looked at me and headed off,” Robinson said.

So began the welcome for old No. 5—the human vacuum cleaner and autograph signer to all—to the place that will bear his name as long as they’ll play baseball and softball at Frederick Douglass High School. Brooks Robinson Field at Group 1001 Park, a multi-million dollar facility in West Baltimore built by the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation, is a field worthy of a title sponsor and approval from the Hall-of-Fame headliner himself.

“If this is not the Field of Dreams,” Robinson said, “I don’t know what is.”

In an intimate gathering under a white party tent erected on the field, another one of our local heroes, Cal Ripken Jr., and the foundation he and his brother Billy created in their father’s honor, unveiled the state-of-the-art synthetic turf diamond (the kind that has redish turf in place of real dirt). It’s the third field they’ve built in West Baltimore in recent years, 13th in the city, and 88th nationwide since 2009.

It’s a place for kids to play, sure, instead of “maybe getting into trouble someplace else,” the Ironman said. But the first thing you notice upon arrival is the inspiring scenery—a wonderful view of the downtown skyline in the distance below centerfield. The tops of the city’s tallest buildings peak above the black chainlink home run fence that wraps around the field. Someone with imagination might also see a resemblance to Camden Yards, with the fronts of the brick houses on Windsor Avenue behind right field standing in for the Orioles’ iconic warehouse.

It took a few years and a greater-than-expected $2.5 million, but it’s now a reality—a huge upgrade from the asphalt parking lot that the school’s baseball and softball teams used to take infield practice—and the culmination of an idea the Ripken Foundation hatched in the wake of the riots after Freddie Gray’s death in 2015 to build five fields in West Baltimore. “It just didn’t seem right what was going on,” said Steve Salem, president of the foundation. “The problem is so big and so overwhelming. What could we do?”

They could do what they do. “We want to help kids, and we want to partner with people who want to help kids,” Cal said. “We want them to play, work together, take some responsibility in their lives, and learn how to be a teammate. We know the value of sport. We know the lessons it can teach. By putting a field right here, we give a lot of kids the opportunity to learn them.”

Since its inception, the Ripken Foundation has partnered with hundreds of youth development programs around the country. Its signature “Badges for Baseball” initiative, created in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Justice, encourages police officers to volunteer as youth sports coaches. The charity evolved into building fields, now in 23 states and Washington, D.C., after “we started to realize with some of our programming is that there wasn’t a safe place for it to happen,” Cal said.

The ribbon-cutting ceremony at Frederick Douglas attracted a cadre of notable guests, like mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young, city council president Brandon Scott (who announced last week he’ll run for mayor), Hall-of-Famer Eddie Murray (who has a field named after him at James Mosher Elementary School), and private donors and supporters of the project. Among them are Kohl’s department store founder and former Ripken Foundation board chair Jay Baker and former Maryland senator Frank Kelly. It seemed nearly everyone in attendance had a direct or emotional connection to the construction.

“This is about giving people an opportunity,” said Tony Reagins, executive vice president of Major League Baseball, which donated $450,000 the project. “Sometimes all you need as a young person is a chance. This creates it.” Reagins got emotional while reflecting on his first visit to Frederick Douglass a year ago, when he spoke with baseball coach Jim Foster and saw kids practicing on blacktop instead of grass or turf.

The Ripken brothers spoke about the love for their dad, and for Robinson (“Brooks was my hero,” Cal said). Robinson shared his admiration for the former O’s manager before delivering a priceless moment for any baseball fan with a heart. The greatest third baseman of all time started talking about what many, including he, describe as the greatest baseball movie ever, Field of Dreams. He explained how and why the field that now bears his name reminds him of the film.

“I don’t go to movies much, but I saw it twice,” Robinson said. “Both times I had a little tear in my eye right down my cheek. The last part of that movie really got to me, and reminded me so much of my dad.”

He’s, of course, referring to the scene when the character played by Kevin Costner asks his father if he wants to play catch, just before the old-time Yankee heads back into an Iowa cornfield. Robinson’s dad, a semipro baseball player from Arkansas, asked his son the same question regularly. (And we are all thankful.) “My dad was my hero,” Robinson said. “He showed me what baseball is all about—how to act, how to play, give it your best all the time. I think about him all the time. That’s what I’m thinking about when I see that field here.”

As Cal pointed out, any field is only as valuable as those that use it: “When I think about this field, it’s great. The pomp and circumstance is great. But the real value of this field is those relationships that are built and the lessons that are taught on this field. We don’t even know what kind of effect that will have in the future, but we do know it’s going to be a good one.”

A few kids, if they happened to Google Brooks Robinson after meeting him outside their school this week, should have already learned a lesson in humility.

BeLeaf 

In our city’s ever-evolving effort to become a “cleaner, greener” version of itself, the Flowering Tree Trails of Baltimore initiative is the beautiful, fragrant next step. The effort—organized by a coalition of city governmental departments, environmental groups, and volunteers—aims to plant 6,000 flowering ornamental trees along 39 miles of Baltimore trails. In the spring, when they flower, the trails will be visually connected and become a source of splendor for residents and tourists alike. 

“In time, our city could be as famous for its Flowering Tree Trails as Washington, D.C., is for its cherry blossoms and New York is for the High Line,” says the initiative’s website. The plantings, which can range from—crabapples and cherry trees to dogwoods and silverbells—will contribute to the city’s goal of increasing its tree canopy from 28 percent to 40 percent by 2037. That is the level of coverage the U.S. Forest Service recommends if Baltimore wants to improve its air quality. The first trees went into the ground on November 11, during a ceremony in Druid Hill Park. Organizers estimate that, when all is said and planted, the initiative will cost somewhere in the low seven figures. Fundraising efforts are underway.

Bay Watch

Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen has introduced legislation to increase funding for a program that helps farmers prevent agricultural runoff from entering the bay. According to the Chesapeake Bay Program “agriculture is the single largest source of nutrient and sediment pollution entering the Chesapeake Bay.” The bill, officially titled the Chesapeake Bay Farm Bill Enhancements Act of 2017, would triple funding—from $100 million to $300 million—available to farmers for mitigating practices such as constructing secure manure storage, installing cover crops, practicing no-till farming, and maintaining forested stream buffers. 

Van Hollen’s bill has already garnered multiple sponsors, including one Republican, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia. According to The Washington Post, Congressman Robert C. “Bobby” Scott of Virginia’s 3rd District will introduce an identical bill in the House, but is still gathering support. Separately, Congress continues to debate 2018 funding levels for the Chesapeake Bay cleanup program—a six-state, $73 million agreement to curb pollution that President Trump has proposed eliminating.   

Sewer Followup

When last we checked in with Baltimore City’s $1.6 billion plan to upgrade its failing sewer system, the city was locked in a dispute with water quality advocacy group Blue Water Baltimore over the scope of the federally mandated consent decree. Blue Water Baltimore wanted the work to continue until water quality met a certain benchmark, even if that meant performing repairs and upgrades outside the purview of the initial agreement. The city—and the federal government—argued that this was not feasible or necessary. In October, a federal judge sided with the city and federal government. The first phase of the project, which will address 83% of sewer overflows, is supposed to be completed by January 1, 2021. All remaining work is to be completed by 2030. The consent decree can be viewed in full here.  

Park Places

• The ribbon cutting of a redeveloped baseball field in West Baltimore provided the setting for a classic Orioles reunion last week as Cal Ripken Jr., Eddie Murray, and Brooks Robinson gathered at the newly dedicated Eddie Murray Field at BGE Park. The park, a project of the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation, now features a synthetic turf baseball diamond, dugouts, a backstop, and a digital scoreboard. The field is located behind James Mosher Elementary School and will host after- school programming in addition to James Mosher Baseball—the oldest continuously operating African-American youth baseball league in the country.
• Users of the Stony Run trail that snakes through many of North Baltimore’s most coveted neighborhoods had cause for celebration in early October. After nearly 10 years and $1 million in investment, two footbridges opened creating the final linkages in the trail that runs between Roland Avenue and North Charles Street from just below Northern Parkway to Remington.  
• In October, the state announced it will allocate $23 million to protect parcels of farmland, forest, and open space in 17 conservation districts around the state. The funds are part of the Rural Legacy Program, a program of the state Department of Natural Resources, that works “to preserve large, contiguous tracts of land and to enhance natural resource, agricultural, forestry and environmental protection while supporting a sustainable land base for natural resource based industries.” This year’s recipients include the Manor and Piney Run areas in Baltimore County, and the Deer Creek area of Harford County. 

Babies in a Half Shell: Turtle Power!

In late September, the National Park Service announced that a nest of loggerhead sea turtles successfully hatched on Assateague Island National Seashore. The approximately 100 hatchlings emerged from one nest site in the Maryland Over Sand Vehicle zone and successfully made their way out to sea. This is the first successful hatch of loggerhead sea turtles on Assateague, though other attempts have been noted in recent years. The species generally does not nest north of North Carolina. Bill Hulslander, chief of resource management for the National Seashore says, the hatch “underscores the increasing importance of undeveloped beaches along Assateague Island to sea turtles and other federally threatened and endangered species.”

When the Maryland State Athletic Hall of Fame arrived on the sports scene 60 years ago, it didn’t tiptoe into existence. It jumped in with both feet. The first class of inductees included baseball legends Babe Ruth, Frank “Home Run” Baker, Jimmie Foxx, and Olympic champion Robert Garrett.

Today, as it was in 1956, the MDSAHOF honors the legendary athletes of our state for their widely recognized achievements. Glancing through the 200-person-plus MDSAHOF archive is a trip down memory lane. Gene Shue, Lefty Grove, Chuck Foreman, Cal Ripken Jr., Pam Shriver.

Those who worked tirelessly behind the scenes form an elite group as well. Charley Ellinger, Chester O’Sullivan, Jack Scarbath, John Steadman, Vince Bagli—right on up to legendary high school baseball coach Bernie Walter, who has chaired the MDSAHOF since 2011.

“Our state offers a multi-faceted sports program that includes but is not limited to true amateurs, collegians, and professionals,” says Walter, who points out MDSAHOF inductees range from major sports down to niche sports such as skeet shooting, bowling, and badminton.

In 2012, Walter’s MDSAHOF board revised the rules that had only allowed people born in Maryland to be inducted. Now “adopted Marylanders,” like Johnny Unitas and Brooks Robinson, who not only starred as Maryland athletes, but became a part of the community after retirement, could be elected.

At Walter’s urging, more women were named to the board and a wider selection process saw X Games standout Travis Pastrana inducted in 2011 for action sports and the first four-legged inductee Native Dancer in 2014.

What sets Maryland’s athletes apart?

“For such a small state, the quality and quantity of athletic achievement is incredible,” says Walter. “This was reflected in these past Summer Olympics. If Maryland were a country, it would have ranked second on the gold-medal list.”

Walter and what he calls the “incredible group of doers” who comprise his MDSAHOF board are thrilled to celebrate the organization’s 60th birthday.

This year’s induction class, which will be honored Nov. 3 at Michael’s Eighth Avenue in Glen Burnie, includes the Hall’s first female soccer player and a cross-section of talent:

Brady Anderson

Orioles Hall of Famer, three-time American League All-Star.

Twenty years ago, Anderson hit 50 homers, which was the most by an Oriole until Chris Davis had 53 in 2013. His name still appears all over the Orioles career leader list. Now vice president of baseball operations for the team, Anderson was asked if he aspires to one day run the team. “If I do my job really well, it will help the current GM keep his job,” Anderson says. “If you’re focused on things like that, you would have to be thinking about the current GM not doing well. To me, that would be a very twisted thought.”

Wheeler Baker

Ten-time winner of the American Power Boat Association National Championships.

Five-mile races in hydroplanes weren’t for the faint of heart. “We’d get to the turn and sometimes four or five of us were going at the same time, and you don’t slack up. You slack up, you lose,” recalls Baker, a native of the Eastern Shore. He went on to serve as a county commissioner and in the House of Delegates. He is president of the Kent Narrows Racing Association and chairs the Chesterwye Foundation, which helps adults with developmental disabilities.

Louis Carter

Running back for the University of Maryland and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Carter led the Terps in rushing for three seasons in the 1970s, went to the NFL, and threw the first touchdown pass in Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ history. He has gained insight from late wife’s illness, battling cancer himself, and counts his blessings. He recalls life after the NFL playing flag football with his Maryland classmates. “It wasn’t the NFL, but it doesn’t give you brain damage, either.”

Gary Jobson

World-class sailor, television commentator, and author based in Annapolis.

A three-time All-American collegiate sailor, Jobson was part of Ted Turner’s crew (tactician) that won the America’s Cup in 1977 aboard Courageous. He became a sailing analyst for the likes of ESPN and NBC and won two Emmys. Once a sport for the rich, sailing “has done a good job of opening the doors wide,” Jobson says. “Right here in Annapolis, there are eight high schools with sailing teams.”

Laurie Schwoy

Rewrote McDonogh record book in 1990s as four-sport star.

Parade magazine national soccer Player of the Year, Schwoy went on to North Carolina, winning three national soccer titles. Injuries kept her off U.S. national team as peers like Mia Hamm made history by winning the 1999 World Cup. “It was a bitter pill to swallow,” Schwoy admits. “It made me a much better human being because of that heartbreak.”

Jack Thomas

All-time lacrosse great at Hopkins.

On the last freshman team not allowed to play, Thomas made it to the national championship the next three years, finally winning as a senior. He was the only player in JHU history to average more than 70 points per season. At Towson High, he was a three-sport star under his dad, Bill Thomas Sr. Thomas taught in Howard County schools for 40 years and “learned it makes a tremendous impression on kids when you have a Wikipedia page.”

In addition, longtime sportswriter and Camden Yards official scorer Jim Henneman is being honored by the MDSAHOF as winner of the John F. Steadman Lifetime Achievement Award. A former batboy, usher, and more, Henneman confidently says, “I’m pretty sure I’ve seen more Orioles games than anybody alive.”