April 20, 2007

You'd think that interviewing three Hall of Famers in the past would make it easier to speak to a fourth one.

It isn't.

In the history of baseball, there are 38 first ballot of Hall of Famers and I've now interviewed four of them (Bob Gibson, Reggie Jackson and Jim Palmer are the others).

My fourth, Brooks Robinson, called me yesterday and we spoke for about ten minutes about the Atlantic League and his first professional season in York.

First of all, the fact that a guy with those credentials is calling me never ceases to amaze me. You obviously have to be professional and you obviously have a job to do, but hearing "this is Brooks Robinson" on the other end sets off a few alarms.

I probably could have done a better job with my questions, but I think I still did a decent job and was able to get a lot of good stuff for an Opening Day feature. He told a really great story about his first game in York, which was his first professional game back in 1955.

That'll probably be my lead, so I don't want to let that cat out of the bag, but suffice it to say that nobody knew who he was back then.

I've still got a lot of work to do on my Opening Day stuff, and I have to meet with my boss early next week to figure out exactly what I'll be able to get in print, but I think things are going pretty well so far. And regardless of what ends up in the paper, you'll be able to find everything over at AtlanticLeagueBaseball.com