Getting Started

The Roberts family was close-knit, and although we did not have much when I was a kid, we never felt deprived or thought much about it. Dad was a Welsh coal miner who migrated to Springfield in 1921 with Mom and my oldest brother and sister in search of work in the coal mines of central Illinois. He had served in the British Infantry in World War I and had been at the terrible battle at Gallipoli, although he was not in the front wave of troops that suffered horrible casualties. I came along in 1926, the fifth of six children. My middle name, Evan, was after my dad's younger brother who was killed on the western front in World War I before his 18th birthday. Growing up in Springfield, I was called Evan by everyone but Dad, who for some reason called me by my first name, Robin. As child number five, I was after Tom, Nora, Joan, and John and before George. My oldest brother, Tom, was very talented mechanically, like our dad, but died in an accident on a submarine in 1942 when he was only 21.

My first sports memory is of playing in our backyard with my brothers. We would take my dad's Bull Durham tobacco sack and fill it full of grass. Dad had brought a cricket bat with him from Wales, and we used it to hit the Bull Durham sack. Dad loved to pitch horseshoes, so we pitched a lot of horseshoes. My brothers and I would play football in the yard. I do remember that we used to whack the daylights out of each other. I was a real pain if I lost. I wanted to win every time and had a terrible temper when it didn't work out that way. I could put on quite a show.

Through the fourth grade I played ball mostly with my brothers and neighborhood kids. One weekend when I was nine years old we were playing softball down at the little grade school. Tom, who was 15, was playing shortstop, and I was playing about 10 or 12 feet behind him. A guy smashed a hard line drive right at Tom and he ducked away. I reached up and caught it and flipped it to him. I don't think Tom could believe that his little brother could catch such a shot.

On the other hand, Tom and my dad were great with anything mechanical, and my brother John was a fine carpenter, but I just did not have any ability in those areas whatsoever. We had an old Model T Ford, but Dad didn't drive. Mom did all the driving, and one day while she was driving Dad to work, another car forced her off the road, knocking the car out of alignment. Dad paid $5 for a second Model T that didn't run. Tom and he combined the parts from both to end up with one running Model T. I stood and watched in amazement.

John helped Dad a tremendous amount in adding on to the house after Tom left to join the navy. They were always making improvements to the place — expanding the house, putting in indoor plumbing and the like.

Except for horseshoes, Dad had little experience playing sports. While my brothers and I were playing basketball in the yard one day, the ball rolled over to my father who was working in the garden. He kicked it back like a soccer player. My brothers and I never played soccer, but maybe that was Dad's other sport. I remember that the Bolton Wanderers of the English League was his favorite team. Dad tried to play baseball with us only one time. He picked up a bat and tried to hit fungoes to me. He took two swings and missed and called it a day, handing the bat back to my brother John.

People just have different skills and abilities and interests. I couldn't do anything with a motor or with a hammer and nails, but I could sure catch a ball, shoot a basket, or throw a football from a young age.

My first exposure to organized sports came when I entered fifth grade at our little two-room grade school, East Pleasant Hill. That was the year a new teacher, C. B. Lindsay, arrived. He had just graduated from Illinois Normal College (now Illinois State University) and was an energetic, enthusiastic young man and a gifted teacher. He made school interesting, both in and out of the classroom. He encouraged us to put on plays within the school and to participate in county dramatic and humorous readings and math contests. I enjoyed the county competitions and won blue ribbons in each area.

I took a particular liking to Rudyard Kipling, because I associated his poems with places like India where Dad had served in the military. I memorized "Gunga Din" and "East Is East and West Is West" in grade school and can still probably get through most of "Gunga Din" all these years later. At least I impressed Eddie Oswald, my catcher and roommate with the Wilmington Blue Rocks, a few years later with my Kipling recitations. After I had children of my own, we would ask the boys to read a favorite poem at dinner, and I would try to impress them with a few lines from Kipling. I don't think it worked.

The first time I had my picture in the paper, however, had nothing to do with academics, athletics, or poetry. One evening someone shot two people at a tavern near East Pleasant Hill School. The police chased the assailant right past the school. The morning paper reported that the gunman had thrown his gun away near the school. Tommy Fahrenbacher and I arrived at school early and decided to go look for the gun. The paper had suggested that the gun was thrown on the shoulder of the road, but we couldn't find it. Tommy decided that maybe the gun was up in the pasture. He climbed up the bank and over the fence and immediately spotted the .45 revolver.

Tommy put his red farmer handkerchief around the handle, and we carried it back to school. Mr. Lindsay took us to the Springfield police station right away. The police chief thanked us, and the Illinois State Register put our picture on the front page, the first time I hit the papers.

C.B. also loved sports, and he organized school softball and basketball teams so that we could play against other schools. In basketball we had only an outdoor cinder court, so we played all of our games away. I was in school with C.B. for four years, fifth through eighth grade, and played softball and basketball every year. He stressed good sportsmanship and good, clean competition, and I never missed a game. I took to basketball right away and could play softball well, too, so it was pretty clear from then on that I had a knack for sports.

At home during those years, I followed Chicago Cubs games on the radio. My younger brother, George, and I would put the radio in the window and stand outside and play the game along with the Cubs. When the Cubs were in the field we would put our gloves on and play in the field. When they came to bat, we would grab our bats, which had plenty of nails and black tape, and be ready. If Stan Hack was hitting, we would bat left-handed; if Billy Herman or Gabby Hartnett was hitting, we would swing right-handed. We would be out there every...