Thanks, Roy, soooo much for sharing your beautiful experiences with Brooks!!
The chapter on Brooks in Joe Posnanski’s book, The Baseball 100, is wonderful. The author’s father would drill him as a boy growing up in Cleveland by having him dive left and right after a Wiffle ball.. urging him all the while to “be like Brooks Robinson”.
He writes:
“Brooks broke his left arm and collarbone when he was very young and taught himself (with his dad’s help) to throw right handed. Can you imagine how different baseball history would have been (and all our lives- my comment) had Brooks not broken his arm? He would have thrown left handed and not played third base.
To the question he answered in a school essay at age 13 of why he believed he could become a big league ballplayer, he wrote “I’m slow to anger and not easily discouraged;am enthusiastic, happy, calm, and very active.” … I think that came through with the way he played”..(and the way he lived.-my comment )