In a quiet Woodland Hills neighborhood, just a baseball throw away from St. Mel's Catholic Church and down the street from Woodland Hills Country Club, a young boy took his first steps toward the Hall of Fame.
During long summer days, from sun-up until dusk, Robin Yount would hang out in his backyard with neighborhood buddies imagining themselves as major leaguers. Armed with plastic baseballs and a sawed-off bat, they engaged in heated competition.
"They were some of my best days," Yount said. "We'd play by the hour, making diving catches into the swimming pool thinking it was the seventh game of the World Series. It was a lot more comfortable to land in water, especially in a bathing suit."
From those humble beginnings emerged the San Fernando Valley's second greatest baseball player next to Don Drysdale.
Yount went to Taft High School, graduated in 1973 and was the No. 3 pick overall by the Milwaukee Brewers in the amateur draft. After a couple months in the minors, he became the Brewers' starting shortstop at 18. The rest is history.
He played 19 years with the Brewers, finishing with 3,142 hits. He had 11,008 at-bats. Only Pete Rose, Hank Aaron, Carl Yastrzemski, Ty Cobb and Eddie Murray have had more at-bats in baseball history. He was a two-time American League most valuable player.
Yount retired after the 1993 season to his new home in Paradise Valley, Ariz. He still helps the Brewers, coaching in spring training. He plays lots of golf, rides motorcycles, is part owner of a couple race cars and is quite busy as the parent of four teenagers. He's a volunteer assistant baseball coach at Chaparral High, where his son, Dustin, is a freshman catcher.
"[Dustin] tries to show me how to hit," Robin said.
Come January, Yount will surely return to the national spotlight. That's the month he figures to receive news of his selection into baseball's Hall of Fame. Yount, Nolan Ryan and George Brett are eligible for 1999.
"There's no question it would be certainly a great honor to be even thought of in those terms," he said of his possible induction into Cooperstown. "It's not something I dwell on."
Yount is offering his support for the Taft High golf tournament on June 22 at Tarzana's El Caballero Country Club in honor of former Taft coaches Ray O'Connor and Hal Lambert. O'Connor was the baseball coach when Yount played at Taft.
"Tell him to keep it between the white lines if they have any," Yount advised O'Connor on golf strategy at El Caballero.
