Fifty years ago, a talented 18-year-old rookie who would become the franchise’s best-ever player made his debut with the Milwaukee Brewers.
Robin Yount would go on to a Hall of Fame career with the Brewers, winning a pair of American League MVP awards and leading the team to its lone World Series appearance in 1982. Along the way, Yount developed a love affair with Milwaukee and Wisconsin that remains strong to this day.
The Brewers honored Yount at American Family Field on Sunday, celebrating 50 years since his 1974 debut season. He received a long and loud standing ovation from the crowd before throwing out a ceremonial first pitch.
“I don’t take it for granted,” Yount said in a media session that also included former Brewers owner and Commissioner Emeritus of Baseball Bud Selig, with one-time teammate Greg Vaughn looking on. “I’m the luckiest guy in the world to have been drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers. I didn’t know it at the time but not too far into my career I realized this was the place for me. I appreciate the way the community and everybody in the organization has treated me, that’s why I still come back. I’m a Brewer forever.”
Yount played his entire 20-year career (1974-93) with the Brewers, winning the American League Most Valuable Player Award at two positions and establishing himself as one of the most versatile players in baseball history.
Selected by Milwaukee in the first round (No. 3 overall) of the 1973 first-year player draft, Yount made his debut for Milwaukee on Opening Day in 1974 as the Brewers starting shortstop.
Yount remembered taking a seat next to Brewers’ manager Del Crandall on a bus late in spring training that year. He figured he was about to be sent to the minor leagues.
“It didn’t go that way,” Yount said. “He said ‘I want to tell you that you’re my Opening Day shortstop in Milwaukee.’”
Yount was understandably thrilled but his excitement was tempered by the message Crandall delivered.
“He said if you get some hits here and there, that’ll be great. All your offense is a bonus,” Yount recalled. “All we want you to do is make the plays. Catch the ball, throw them out and play good defense. My heart was now really pounding because of the lack of confidence I had in my defense. I always knew I hit but I wasn’t sure I could play major league defense. I always took a lot of pride over the course of my career that I figured out how to be a better defensive player.”
Memories of the first season are scant five decades later, Yount said.
“You’re asking a guy that doesn’t have a very good memory,” he said. “I can remember my first game. Small details of it. I had never played a game in that cold of weather in my life growing up in southern California. I’m going ‘God, they play baseball in this.’ It was four or five games later when I got my first hit, it went like 2,000 others went. Just a little shank between the first baseman and second baseman. Nice and easy, probably off the thumbs. I know it was against Baltimore. It might have been against [Dave] McNally or [Mike] Cuellar, one of the lefties.”
Selig said the decision to draft Yount changed the course of the franchise and baseball in Milwaukee.
“Outside of Henry [Aaron] coming here in ’75, this was really important to the Milwaukee franchise,” Selig said. “All I can say is this was not only important to the franchise but important to Milwaukee because it became a symbol for what the franchise was.”
The youthful-looking Yount, who turns 69 next month and still refers to the former team owner as “Mr. Selig,” earned All-Star selections in 1980, 1982 and 1983. He was a near-unanimous pick for American League MVP in 1982, becoming the fourth AL shortstop to win the Award. In 1989 he won a second MVP award – at the time only the third player to win MVPs at two different positions. A three-time Silver Slugger Award winner and a Gold Glove recipient, Yount is the franchise leader in games (2,856), at-bats (11,008), runs (1,632), hits (3,142), doubles (583), triples (126), RBI (1,406), total bases (4,730) and walks (966). He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999.
Yount spending his entire playing career in Milwaukee “meant a great deal,” Selig said. “This has really been a very unusual and marvelous relationship. I think our fans understood that right from the beginning.”
There was, however, one brief period in 1989 when Yount, the self-proclaimed “Brewer forever,” strongly considered leaving Milwaukee for the California Angels because he and Selig were “not seeing eye to eye” about the team’s direction and Yount’s desire to once again play in the World Series. Selig and Yount eventually ironed out their differences and reached a new deal that kept Yount in Milwaukee for the remainder of his career.
Yount fought back tears as he recalled the outpouring of support from the Milwaukee community, especially from elementary school students, who sent him cards and letters pleading him to stay with the Brewers.
“I’ve got stacks of this stuff,” he said. “I felt the overwhelming support of the community not to leave. After that, there’s no way I could leave. I wasn’t leaving.”
One of the most memorable moments for Yount and Brewers fans came in the seventh inning of the team’s Sept. 9, 1992 game against Cleveland when Yount singled for his 3,000th hit, becoming the 17th player – and the third-youngest – to achieve the milestone.
Yount, who lives in Arizona, said he hasn’t been able to watch many Brewers games this season but has tracked the team’s progress. “There’s a lot to be excited about,” he said.
He had this to say about 20-year-old Brewers’ rookie Jackson Chourio, who is in the midst of a stellar first season.
“He seems far more mature than I was,” Yount said.
He also noted how improbable it is that he, Selig and famed broadcaster Bob Uecker, all of whom were part of the Brewers franchise in 1974 and remain close, would together leave such an indelible mark on baseball. “In 1974, what do you think the odds would have been that Mr. Selig, an 18-year-old shortstop and Bob Uecker would all end up in the Baseball Hall of Fame. I’d love to have a dollar on that.”
When asked what message he has for the young generation of baseball players, Yount stressed the need for dedication and perseverance.
“There’s no magic formula. I can promise you that,” he said. “It takes a lot of hard work and oftentimes being in the right place at the right time. Being prepared that when you do get that opportunity that you take advantage of it. Preparation and give it all you have every pitch of every game like it’s the seventh game of the World Series and then if you approach your career with that in mind, in the end you’ve done everything you can do and you’ve got to live with the results. I worked hard. I took it very seriously.”
