Eddie Brinkman, The Turtle, and The Giraffe

Representative of a different era in baseball, former major league shortstop Eddie Brinkman mastered the glove but was overwhelmed by the bat for most of his 15-year career. Brinkman, who died on Tuesday at the age of 66, was the kind of player who would have found it tough being an everyday shortstop in today's game. Yet, he was a good fit for the sixties and seventies, when teams willingly gave up offense for defense on the middle infield. A beanpole of a shortstop, Brinkman had excellent range, reliable hands, and a howitzer-like throwing arm that allowed him to make plays deep in the hole. Man, he was fun to watch. He was only a shade inferior to Mark Belanger, the man who epitomized slick-fielding, light-hitting shortstops of that era.

There are two things I most remember about Brinkman. First, he was part of the monstrous package that the old Washington Senators sent to the Tigers for a fading Denny McLain. That ill-fated deal crippled the Senators, but supplied the Tigers with a new left side of the infield, comprised of Brinkman at shortstop and Aurelio Rodriguez at third base, along with a competent starting pitcher in Joe Coleman. On a more peculiar level, I'll always remember Brinkman for having an incredibly long neck. (Acclaimed sportswriter says that an older Brinkman, with his long neck and bald head, reminded him of a turtle.) Brinkman was the antithesis of Walt "No Neck" Williams, a subject of Card Corner earlier this summer. It's amazing that no one ever stuck Brinkman with the nickname of "Giraffe."

Frankly, some giraffes, or even turtles, might have hit better than Brinkman. And I say that as someone who admired Brinkman as a player. He just couldn't hit. Outside of Ted Williams' first two seasons as the Senators manager, Brinkman usually struggled to hit better than .220, and did so with little power. He wasn't a particularly good bunter or hit-and-run man, either. The bat must have felt like a foreign object in his hands most of the time. But not the glove. When it came to fielding his position, few of his contemporaries were any better than Steady Eddie Brinkman.