Former Oriole catcher Gus Triandos always had one leg up on his friend and teammate Brooks Robinson: a street named after him.
But, standing on a street sandwiched between Park Heights Avenue and Stevenson Road in Baltimore County Wednesday, Robinson tied the score.
He said he was itching to go home and call his old buddy.
“Guess what, Gus?” Robinson joked. “Take that.”
The county unveiled the new street, Brooks Robinson Drive, on the “human vacuum cleaner?s” 70th birthday.
County dignitaries gathered by the new double-sided street signs that will replace existing ones on Radio Tower Drive, not far from the home Robinson shares year-round with his wife, Connie.
Police officers assigned to patrol the event brought baseballs for autographs, and one local radio director asked Robinson to sign a jersey he swore he will “be buried in.”
County Executive Jim Smith also appeared starstruck, asking the legendary third baseman to sign a photo of the pair taken 24 years ago, when Smith was a County Councilman and Robinson was a recent Hall of Fame inductee.
” ?Drive? is the right ending to this road name because this man has had drive all his life, and will now have it forever and ever and ever,” Smith said.
Robinson, a Little Rock, Ark., native, retired in 1977 after 23 years as a Baltimore Oriole, Major League Baseball?s second-longest tenure with a club.
He won 16 consecutive Gold Glove Awards during his career and played in four World Series, capturing the World Series MVP in 1970.
County Councilman Joe Bartenfelder, D-District 6, brought his daughter to meet the man he called “the definition of the Oriole way.” Other county employees attended, hoping to shake hands with their childhood hero.
“He was always a classy guy, never under any suspicion for anything, and he showed up for work,” said Don Rascoe, deputy director of the county?s permits department. “He also happened to be a tremendous player.”
