I once got in trouble for reading a biography, “The Brooks Robinson Story,” in algebra class my sophomore year in high school. When the teacher, Mrs. Diane Smith, caught me reading the book, she went on a tirade that everyone in the class witnessed.

Mrs. Smith reached the end of her lecture with a rhetorical question concerning why my older sister had never read a baseball book in her class. It would be a few years before I fully grasped the concept of a rhetorical question, and, I answered that my sister really didn’t like baseball. The class erupted in laughter as Mrs. Smith realized her mistake in comparing siblings.

As she turned to walk back to her desk, she said, “Boy, I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.”

The fact is I always found baseball more interesting than math or most other subjects I was required to wade through in high school. I guess that’s one reason I find myself hacking away at stories and columns than trying to figure out the stress points on bridges or something else with a foundation in math.

I recall that story today because it’s Brooks Robinson’s 72nd birthday. The man once tabbed, “The Human Vacuum Cleaner,” or nicknamed “Hoover,” for his work at third base retired in 1978, but not before giving millions of baseball fans enough thrills to last our youth and some in a career that ended at the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Another Hall of Famer, Reggie Jackson celebrates his birthday today as well. Mr. October may have made his name in the Fall Classic, but he was a boy of the spring born in 1946.

Jackson was a great power hitter who swung hard. His 563 home runs place him among the greatest sluggers that ever played the game. His 2,597 strikeouts are the most of any player in history. And Reggie Jackson is the only non pitcher in the Hall of Fame that struck out more times than he got a hit.

Like Robinson, Jackson has continued to be a Good Will Ambassador for the game of baseball long after his last game.

Happy Birthday Brooks and Reggie.

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