Robin Roberts

SPORTING GOODS

The number of people who knew that a current television personality shared a name with a Hall of Fame pitcher is no doubt dwindling, but I was always struck by the happenstance—especially since their genders were dissimilar.

The reason I knew of the coincidence was that the first major league baseball team I probably ever knew the name of was the Philadelphia Phillies. I happened to live in the Philadelphia environs in the late '50s, and so the Phillies were the team I could watch on television.

The team was dreadful, but it had one star: Roberts. When the future Hall of Famer got his 200th career win in 1958, it was about the only positive story on the Phils the Inquirer could report that year. Roberts could also hit and was one of the few switch-hitting pitchers I ever heard of.

Requiescat in pace.

UPDATE — A moving elegy can be found here.