In spring of 1974, a fresh-faced 18-year-old named Robin Yount broke spring training as a member of the Milwaukee Brewers, the beginning of a 20-year career spent entirely in Milwaukee. Now, the relationship between Yount and Milwaukee has reached its golden anniversary – 50 years and going strong.
Shortly after graduating from Taft High School in Los Angeles’ Woodland Hills neighborhood, the Brewers selected Yount as the No. 3 pick in the 1973 amateur baseball draft. After agreeing on a contract, the Brewers sent Yount to play summer ball with their affiliate in Newark, New York. Yount immediately impressed in his first season as a pro and was considered one of baseball’s best overall prospects.
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As such, the next spring, Yount was invited to join the big league training camp in Sun City, Arizona. When he arrived, Yount was still more than six months away from his 19th birthday and looked so young he was quickly named “The Kid,” a moniker former teammates and friends still use when addressing him today. While Yount was expected to play in the major leagues at some point, conventional wisdom dictated that the teenager less than a year out of high school with an unconvincing blonde mustache wouldn’t do it anytime soon.
But Brewers manager Del Crandall just couldn’t find an excuse to send The Kid down. Much to the surprise of everyone – except, possibly, Crandall – Yount was going to be a starting shortstop in the big leagues.
Yount’s mother, Marion, knew her son was a competitor but also knew he had the ability to mask it. She said there were two Robins around her house – the son she raised as a good boy and the young man who went to the ballfield. Sometimes it was difficult to imagine them as the same person. Robin was always fearless and possessed unbelievable courage and unparalleled poise. While he was in high school, there were 24 teams in professional baseball – and a scout from every one of them came to Woodland Hills to watch him play.
In Milwaukee, Yount was known as a guy who typified dedication, conscientiousness and loyalty. He seemed to give 100% in every game he played in, running out every ground ball. Still, you would have needed a crystal ball to see how good he would become, and perhaps more importantly, for as long as he was. He won American League MVP in 1982 and 1989, collected 3,142 hits – just one of his franchise marks, along with games played, runs, doubles, triples, RBIs and walks.
“Robin is the best player ever to put on the blue and gold,” Dan Plesac tells Milwaukee Magazine. Plesac, a three-time All-Star relief pitcher who spent the first seven seasons of his 18-year career with Yount and the Brewers, is an analyst with MLB Network these days. “From a teenage shortstop to a Hall of Fame player, and MVP at two positions, Robin is everything that’s good about baseball. He grew up in California but made Wisconsinites feel like he was one of theirs.”
Only a few players in baseball history are synonymous with the city they played for – think Ty Cobb and Detroit, George Brett and Kansas City, Carl Yastrzemski and Boston.
Former Brewers owner Bud Selig would recall signing Yount as a crowning achievement for the franchise. Selig was aware how rare it was for a player to come to a franchise, play two decades and never cause one iota of a problem.
Yount, more than any player, led his teams by example on the field. But there’s also leadership that is sort of quietly displayed. Yount’s Hall of Fame teammate Paul Molitor led that way, too. Between those two superstars, there was never any berating or yelling at each other in the clubhouse, or temper tantrums on the field because they didn’t get a hit or missed a play. It was all about leading by example. Robin Yount doesn’t have an ego problem because he doesn’t have an ego.
Former Brewers manager Tom Trebelhorn (1984-91) says it’s not often that you find a sports celebrity is a better person than their athletic prowess. “Robin Yount is a great person, period. And he made the Milwaukee Brewers a Major League contending team,” Trebelhorn tells MilMag. “The fans responded with admiration, respect and love for The Kid. It was an honor to have coached him and always a pleasure to be his teammate.”
Yount is still extremely popular both among those within the game and his fans in Milwaukee and beyond. It may sound cliche to baseball fans around the country, but the love between Robin Yount and this town is real. It’s palpable whenever the man’s name comes up in conversation.
At the peak of his career, he could have played anywhere he chose. Yount knew who he was and didn’t need a big city to tell him what he was worth. He wasn’t about the statistics – never cared. All he could do was control his effort and output. He worked hard and never, ever boasted. “Publicity doesn’t make that much difference to me,” Yount once told a reporter. “I don’t especially like it, but I understand there is a need for it in baseball.”
Yount was refreshing in a sport dominated by “look at me,” mentality, and that isn’t lost on people that know and love the game. Before Ron Shelton wrote and directed the film Bull Durham, he was a professional ballplayer in the Baltimore Orioles system. Shelton says Yount and Milwaukee were a perfect fit – Yount seemed to thrive in the small market with no controversy or headaches that come with a huge city. A young California kid from the Valley. “Robin Yount was the most natural and effortless in his brilliance,” Shelton says. “Yount and George Brett are the kind of guys I love in the game. My favorites – and I’ve never met either of them.”
John Adam, the Brewers’ head athletic trainer through a good chunk of Yount’s career, was always been struck by Yount’s durability. His toughness. Adam recalls several times where Yount took a foul ball off his foot or shin that would have taken another player out of that game, or the next. But Yount never complained. That just wasn’t him, to even think about exiting the game early.
Adam says a lot of people throw accolades around when discussing Yount, but they always seem to miss one component of his game: “I don’t think fans really know what a strong runner he was,” he says. “I mean great speed. He was a fantastic base runner.”
In this life, in this sport, 50 years is a long time. Milwaukee has been blessed to have shared the same light with Robin Yount for five decades. The honor has been all ours.
