Both Sides of the Box: Two Book Reviews of Uncle Robbie

Abstract

Both Sides of the Box:Two Book Reviews of Uncle Robbie Brant E. Ducey (bio) Jack Kavanaugh and Norman Macht. Uncle Robbie. Cleveland OH: Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), 1999. 200 pp. Paper, $12.95. Just as they waited years and years for a World Championship (1955), fans of the old Brooklyn Dodgers have been waiting too long for a book on the career of Wilbert Robertson, who managed the club from 1914 to 1931. This book, written by SABR members Kavanagh and Macht, and published by the research organization, fills a long-overdue gap in information on the life and forty-five-year baseball career of "Uncle Robbie." Despite his struggles to field a pennant-winning Dodgers team (two in eighteen years), Robinson was so popular in his heyday that he graced the cover of TIME in 1930. Then, like several other TIME cover subjects, he went into immediate decline, retiring a year later. Robinson died in 1934 and was inducted into Cooperstown's Baseball Hall of Fame in 1948. Since then, his fame has languished in baseball literature as several decades of new stars have captured our attention. While bits and pieces of Robinson's managerial career can be found in several books—for example, he got eighty-six pages in Frank Graham's 1945 history, The Brooklyn Dodgers, and was briefly dismissed by Leo Durocher in his 1948 book, The Dodgers and Me (Durocher wrote: "Truly, Wilbert Robinson must have been the most blundering-est of all baseball men!"), there has been woefully little written about his early life and playing career. Kavanagh and Macht rectify this with a full picture of Robinson and his baseball times, capturing the personality of a man so popular that his Brooklyn team was generally known and affectionately referred to as the "Robins." There is so much rich baseball history in the early period covered by this [End Page 150] book that it would be hard to miss with a larger-than-life subject like Wilbert Robinson. The authors have done a fine job in piecing together Robbie's early life and obviously grew to like him, as did most of his contemporaries. They debunk several myths that grew up around Robinson and the Dodgers, and like earlier assessments, they found him to be a lovable and easygoing man who did the best with the talent he had. One of the best sections of the book covers the period of Robinson's Major League catching career, from 1886 to 1906. When he retired as an active player, spent largely with the Baltimore Orioles, he had caught in 1,316 games, then the Major League record, and had a lifetime batting average of .277. The authors provide an entertaining look at how the game was played in those days. The 1894-97 Orioles had a reputation for being the toughest, rowdiest, dirtiest, most foul-mouthed team in history, the equal of the infamous Cleveland Spiders. Other than being tough, the popular team captain was never accused of the other traits. The book explores the close friendship and eventual feud that developed between Robinson and the pugnacious young third baseman John McGraw, who joined the Orioles in 1891. It was McGraw who typified the brawling, nasty side of the Orioles, yet the two men were fast friends, becoming co-owners of the Orioles in 1901. Off the field, they had become partners in a renowned food and booze emporium in Baltimore that netted them three times their baseball salaries. McGraw jumped to the Giants in 1902 and later hired Robinson to manage his pitching staff, with the team winning pennants in 1911, 1912, and 1913. Then the friendship broke apart, and the two men barely spoke to each other during the next seventeen seasons. Another dimension of the book is the backdrop of bitter rivalries among club owners and between the National League, circa 1900; the American Association, which became the American League in 1902; and the Federal League of 1914-15. Then there are the happy years in Brooklyn, when Robinson managed for Charles Ebbets, between 1914 and the latter's death in 1925. A number of legendary stars toiled for...