Bill Robinson

As many of you may have realized by now, I am a chronic sufferer from Old Fogey Disease (OFD).  I am, in fact, one of the few people ever to have contracted this disease while still in childhood.

One of the symptoms of OFD is the irrepressible habit of talking about ballplayers who retired before much of your audience was born.  In this case, that ballplayer is Bill Robinson, once a major Yankees prospect, acquired from the Braves for Clete Boyer, along with one Chi-Chi Olivo, after the disastrous 1966 season.

Robinson was supposed to be yet another can't-miss prospect, a five-tool player people were comparing to Willie Mays or calling "the black Mickey Mantle"—none of which, I am sure, helped his career.  There should have been several warning signs about all the hoopla—for one thing, Robinson had rather toddled his way through five seasons in the Braves' farm system—but hell, players took longer to make the show in those days.

And sure enough, after a poor 1967 with the Yanks, in which he hit just .196, Robinson batted .240 in 107 games in 1968—which in that Year of the Pitcher was like hitting, say, .285 today.  He was just 25, and looked like the Yankees' centerfielder—or maybe right fielder, depending on where they put that Murcer kid—of the future.

Well, it didn't work out that way, as it so often doesn't.  Bill Robinson backslid to a miserable .171 in 1969, and after another mediocre year in the minors was peddled away to the White Sox for a thoroughly forgettable pitcher named Barry Moore, who never pitched again in the majors leagues

Bill Robinson was 27 by this time, and a lesser man might have hung it up.  Not Bill.

He got another shot with an awful Phillies team, and seemed to have a breakthrough year in 1973, when he hit 25 homers and 32 doubles.  But then there was more backsliding.  He got still another shot with the Pirates and finally, in 1976-77, he became at least something of the player so many people thought he could be all along, batting over .300 in both seasons, and hitting 26 homers and driving in 104 runs in 1977.

Robinson was 34 by then, and he was soon in decline for good, though he stuck around long enough to be a starter on the Bucs' 1979 championship team.  He hung on in the majors until he was 40, then became a hitting coach for years with the Mets during their short-lived dynasty, when many of their troubled young players remembered him as the one stabilizing influence they knew.

It was a good career, a valiant career, for a guy who had to face one of the worst things any man ever has to face:  the realization that he is not really as good as everyone says he is.

I bring all this up because of a stat I heard on the Yankees broadcast last night.  According to David Cone, the New York Yankees have had THE WORST production at first base from 2016 on, bar none.

That's right:  at a key offensive position, we are the very worst.  30 out of 30.

Now, so far at least, Greg Bird has not evinced one-thousandth of the grit and persistence that Bill Robinson demonstrated in his career.

But maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe Bird burns inside, and won't quit until his ankle is finally strong like ox, and he can catch up to fastballs.  Maybe, say in 2025, he will have a terrific major-league season.

Which will be way, way too late.

Even the Yankees of the bad old days were able to bring Bobby Murcer into the centerfield spot supposedly reserved for Bill Robinson by 1969, and by 1977, Bill's big year, they were swimming in outfielders:  Reggie, Mick the Quick, Piniella and White, Paul Blair, Jimmy Wynn, etc.

To say the least, they didn't miss him.

Right now, the Yanks have plenty of people who can play first base, and getting more won't be a problem.  I sincerely wish Greg Bird all the best, and I hope he turns his career around before any of that is necessary.

But we have already invested four years in waiting for this lifetime, .213 hitter—maybe the equivalent of hitting .135 back in the days of the high strike.

We don't have another nine years to give him.  I would say we don't have another two weeks.