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.

You can support Hooks & Runs by purchasing books, including those featured in this episode (if any were), through our store at Bookshop.org. Here's the link.
https://bookshop.org/shop/hooksandruns
Hooks & Runs - https://hooksandruns.buzzsprout.com
Email: [email protected]
Craig on Bluesky (@craigest.bsky.social)
Rex (Krazy Karl's Music Emporium) on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/people/Krazy-Karlz-Music-Emporium/100063801500293/
Hosts Emeriti:
Andrew Eckhoff on Tik Tok
Eric on Facebook
Music: "Warrior of Light" by ikolics (via Premium Beat)
This podcast and this episode are copyright Craig Estlinbaum, 2025.