Robin Roberts needs no introduction to baseball fans of the 1950s and `60s, even if you grew up in New England cheering for the Red Sox. As a boy I admired the big Phillies pitcher, now well over 70, who still looks as though he could throw a baseball through a wall. Just in case your memory is slipping, Roberts won 286 games pitching in the major leagues from 1948-1966. He was elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame in 1976.
A few weeks ago I had dinner with Roberts in a room full of Red Sox fans. We were guests of the Vinalhaven Lions Club, many of whom were loyal Sox supporters. What was the Phillies Hall of Fame pitcher doing at a recent Lions Club dinner, surrounded by men who had cheered for the Boston team their entire lives?
The answer is that Roberts was visiting his good friend Shel Gordon on Vinalhaven for the weekend. Knowing my interest in baseball, and sharing my pain as a long suffering Phillies fan (10,000 losses and counting), who spends his summers in New England, Shel had kindly invited me to join him at a Lions Club dinner. Roberts ate lobster (his grandson had three), and answered questions about baseball as we watched the sun set over Carvers Harbor. As the evening wore on, everyone relaxed and listened to the old right-hander tell stories about his baseball career.
In this era of huge salaries paid to professional athletes, Roberts talked about his own career and his negotiations (without an agent) with Phillies owner Bob Carpenter. When he went in to ask Carpenter for a raise after four 20-win seasons, the owner refused, saying that would blow his payroll, which was $750,000. Roberts won 20 games for 6 seasons in a row (1950-1955), but says he never earned more than $54,000.
At one point during the evening he took some time to calm a young lobsterman who was clearly upset by a recent Red Sox move, trading a promising young pitcher for veteran reliever Eric Gagne. Roberts’ response was, “They want to win now”.
Three cute girls strolled by prompting a number of stares. Someone asked, “Robin, how are your eyes”? “My eyes are fine, he replied. “Unfortunately not everything else works as well.”
Roberts talked about pitching to Ted Williams. Although he rarely faced the Red Sox slugger, Roberts recalled facing Williams in an exhibition game and getting two quick strikes on him. He then struck the Hall of Famer out with a slow curve, a pitch he normally never threw. The intense Williams responded with a string of expletives, accusing Roberts of “throwing to him like he was a pitcher.” In his next at-bat Williams got hold of a Roberts fastball and hit a home run, “which”, Roberts says, “is probably still going. Ted could get even in a hurry.”
The other time he faced the legendary Sox star was in the 1950 All-Star game in which Roberts was the starting pitcher for the National League. Early in the game Willliams broke his elbow crashing into the left field wall to rob Ralph Kiner of extra bases. Nevertheless he insisted on staying in the game. Facing Roberts in the first inning he hit a vicious line drive that second baseman Jackie Robinson barely managed to catch. “It is unbelievable that Williams could hit a ball that hard with a broken elbow, but he did”, Roberts reflected.
During the course of the evening Roberts reminisced about his pitching duels with Dodger great Don Newcombe. He talked about losing a game to Sandy Koufax, when the Dodger lefty pitched a three-hitter. “And I had two of the three hits”, Roberts noted. He referred diplomatically to Pete Rose as “his own worst enemy.” Roberts lost the only World Series game he ever pitched to the Yankees, in 1950 by a score of 2-1. Joe DiMaggio won the game with a home run in the 10th inning.
Regarding Barry Bonds, Roberts feels there shouldn’t be an asterisk next to his home run record for allegedly taking steroids. Current players have told him that over the last 10-15 years, a majority of the men in the major leagues have been taking “supplements” since until recently there was anything illegal about them. “The owners knew this was going on for years, yet no one did anything about it”.
At one point we talked about the Phillies who had beaten the Cubs that afternoon, which pleased him a lot. He liked their young pitcher Cole Hamels and said “first baseman Ryan Howard can hit 500 home runs if they’ll pitch to him.” He could only shake his head at Chase Utley’s seven-year, $88 million contract.
Roberts was clearly fascinated by the whole process of lobstering. He asked several lobstermen “What time do you guys get up? What do you do out there? Why do you come back so early?” Roberts found out what it was all about the next day, when he was taken lobstering by Mike Philbrook and Bill Chilles and given the job of banding lobster claws.
Roberts said he thoroughly enjoyed his stay and hopes to be invited back to Vinalhaven even though, “I never realized there was such a hotbed of Red Sox fans this far from Fenway Park”.