From the Archive: The Other Frank Robinson Trade

His acquisition in 1966 was a fateful move that put the Orioles on top of the American League. But they ended his legendary run in Baltimore when he was still productive.

The Orioles’ acquisition of Frank Robinson in a trade with the Cincinnati Reds before the 1966 season is rightly remembered as the most significant transaction in the franchise’s history. Baltimore went to the World Series four times in the next six years, winning twice, with Robinson leading the way.

Remembered far less is the deal that sent Robinson out of Baltimore, to the Los Angeles Dodgers, after the 1971 season. Although the Orioles continued to forge winning seasons after his departure, they ceded the top spot in the American League to the Oakland A’s and didn’t make it back to the World Seres until 1979.

Decades later, it’s hard to see the deal as anything other than a mistake.

Orchestrated by executive Frank Cashen, the Orioles gave up Robinson and pitcher Pete Richert in exchange for four players, only one of whom had a significant impact. (Pitcher Doyle Alexander won 35 games for the Orioles before leaving in a 1976 trade. He pitched elsewhere until 1989, retiring with 194 career wins.)

Cashen opted to trade Robinson primarily because he was 36 and the Orioles wanted to clear space in their lineup for a top outfield prospect, Don Baylor, who was 22 and had dominated at Triple A for two years.

“I knew I was going after the 1971 season, Baylor had to have a place to play,” Robinson said in his Bird Tapes interview. “He and (second baseman Bobby) Grich had great years at Rochester in ‘71 and couldn’t crack the lineup. Someone had to go. I was the oldest guy and making a good salary.”

Cashen and Robinson discussed the likelihood of his being traded during the Orioles’ 18-game, 31-day tour of Japan after the 1971 season.

“It was no secret,” Robinson said. “Frank asked me where I’d like to go. I told him that, since I was near the end of my career, although I didn’t want to leave Baltimore, I wanted to be close to my home in Los Angeles, He said he’d see what he could do and traded me to the Dodgers.”

Some frustrating words there: “I didn’t want to leave Baltimore.”

Clearing space for Baylor is a rationale easily understood by today’s fans; finding room for the Orioles’ current plethora of top-rated prospects is a constant challenge. But a worrisome factor hung over the decision to trade Robinson: He could still play. He totaled 71 home runs and 224 RBIs in the three seasons after the trade. Baylor wasn’t nearly as productive for the Orioles in those three seasons, totaling less than half as many home runs (32) and 148 RBIs. (Traded away in 1976, Baylor went on to have an excellent career, totaling 338 home runs and winning the American League’s Most Valuable Player award while with the California Angels.)

Furthermore, Robinson’s departure impacted the rest of the team. Without him in 1972, the Orioles averaged just 3.2 runs per game, down from 4.5 the year before, and their collective batting average fell 32 points to .229. Fifty-two years later, they still have never again posted a team batting average that low in a season.

“I had a terrible year in ‘72 because Frank was gone,” outfielder Don Buford said in his Bird Tapes interview. “We all tried to do things that we normally didn’t do (to make up for losing Robinson). I tried to hit the ball with power.”

Although the team adjusted and made the playoffs in 1973 and 1974, Robinson was missed, period. When I was collecting interviews for my book on Orioles history a quarter century ago, his subtraction from the team still elicited emotional responses. (Note: Those interviews now constitute the Bird Tapes archive, which can be accessed with a paid subscription.)

“Moving Frank was a terrible decision to have to make,” Earl Weaver said. “But in ‘70, Grich had hit .340 at Rochester and Baylor had been the minor league player of the year, and I had to sit in that office down in Miami (after spring training in 1971) and tell them they had to go back (to Triple A) and do it again. Which they did. Then you have to make room. But wow, that hurt. Because Frank could still play.”

Outfielder Paul Blair was still angry: “I was very disappointed. In my estimation, you just didn’t trade a Frank Robinson. Here’s a guy who should have stayed and retired in Baltimore because he’d done everything to turn the team from just a decent team into the class of the American League. He’d been there six years and we’d gone to the World Series four times. Why would you send this man out? He was the center of our ball club. When we needed a big hit or a run, Frank got it for us. Even at the end. There was just no reason to trade him.”

In hindsight, it’s clear the deal was the first in a series of moves that broke up Baltimore’s championship-caliber nucleus, which was starting to age — an inevitable breakup, in that sense. In the coming years, Cashen also traded Davey Johnson (to make room for Grich), Boog Powell, Dave McNally and Blair.

“I played the bad cop,” Cashen said in his Bird Tapes interview.

But it’s also clear that bad luck — yes, simple bad luck — was a factor. One year after the Orioles traded Robinson, the American League adopted the designated hitter, a seismic rule change that would have enabled Weaver to play Robinson and Baylor together in the Orioles’ lineup.

“If only we’d had the DH a year earlier,’ Weaver said. “If we’d had Frank and Baylor, I think they would’ve started splitting time in the outfield. Donnie wouldn’t have liked it, but I would’ve broken Donnie in as a DH and we would’ve been pretty damn good.”

Buford said, “Basically, they let Frank go one year too quick. Frank would’ve hit if he’d stayed and been the DH. And he would’ve made an outstanding contribution to the club. If they’d stayed with him another year, things might’ve been different. But they had Baylor and the other guys coming up and Earl felt they needed to play, and that’s the way it goes.”

Given Robinson’s status as one of the Orioles’ greatest players, with a statue at Camden Yards to prove it, many of today’s fans surely are surprised to discover that he only played for the team for six years - just 28 percent off his career.

His departure didn’t have to happen. But it did. And many Orioles saw it as a fateful subtraction that changed baseball history.

“Oakland had a nice ball cub, but their three-year reign (of winning back-to-back-to-back World Series) never would’ve happened if Frank had stayed,” Blair said. “We would’ve kept winning, As it was, we finished five games out in ‘72 and went to the playoffs in ‘73 and ‘74. If we’d had Frank, I think we’d have gone to the World Series all three years. The club would’ve stayed the same and we would’ve gone to the World Series six years in a row, from ‘69 through ‘74. I think the Orioles owe me three more World Series rings.”