Doug DeCinces Needed Therapy to Help Him Replace Brooks Robinson

Doug DeCinces slowly took over as the Baltimore Orioles third baseman in 1976 as Brooks Robinson neared the end of the trail.

On June 6, 1976, the Orioles played a doubleheader in Baltimore against the Minnesota Twins. DeCinces' parents, wife, son and grandmother were in the stands. It was the first time that his grandmother was going to see him play.

Robinson played the first game, but when the fans saw that DeCinces was the third baseman in the second game, a chant of "We want Brooks!" echoed throughout the park.

In the first inning, with runners on first and second and one out, the Twins Larry Hisle hit a ground ball to third that bounced off DeCinces’ chest. Hisle beat the late throw to first, and before the inning was over, the Birds were trailing by three runs.

Hisle batted again in the second inning, and DeCinces again made an error on a hard ground ball. The chants for Robinson became almost deafening. When DeCinces batted in the second inning, Twins starter Jim Hughes struck him out on a called third strike.

Then things improved.

Leading off the fifth inning, DeCinces singled, which turned out to be harmless. In the seventh, he hit a two-run home run in a three-run inning. He followed that with an RBI triple in the eighth.

Standing on third, he watched the fans rise out of their seats to cheer him. Years later, he recalled his feelings.

"I wanted to grab a microphone and tell the people what I thought of front-runners,"

Taking over third for Brooks Robinson was not easy. 

After becoming the Orioles third baseman in 1976, DeCinces received repulsive telephone calls and letters. The comparisons to Robinson seemed to never end.

Ron Shapiro, an advisor to Brooks and DeCinces, said, "Brooks could have made six consecutive errors and the fans still would have cheered him. Doug could have made six great plays and one error, and they would have booed him."

DeCinces finished 1976 with a .234 average and 11 home runs. Defensive problems didn’t help.

In 1977, his second full season, DeCinces was charged with 20 errors. The booing continued until one day during the middle of September.

It was Brooks Robinson Day. During the ceremonies, DeCinces uprooted the third base bag, ran over to the gathering and, in front of 51,798 fans, presented the bag to Robinson. He was cheered as never before. The respite was temporary.

In spring training of 1978, a bad-hop grounder broke DeCinces nose, which was broken again early during the regular season. On July 1, he was hitting .226 with 12 errors in only 57 games.

DeCinces problem was that he was the third baseman who followed Brooks Robinson. He agreed to see a psychiatrist, who recognized part of the problem was that no matter what DeCinces accomplished, he would remain a “failure” when compared to Brooks.

It was decided that DeCinces would let his subconscious do his thinking. The approach was similar to transcendental meditation or self-hypnosis. He had to take his mind off details and allow his body to do the work.

He finished 1978 hitting .286/.346/.526 with 28 home runs.

"I have never seen a player turn it around the way Doug did the last half of last season," Brooks says. "He was the hottest player in baseball."

DeCinces was grateful for the help he received.

"Baseball players are viewed as so masculine, so virile, so above all problems," he says. "It's not true. Every player is a human being. Sometimes the strain and mental problems are too much. I don't feel a manager or general manager can always be expected to find out what makes a player tick."

Reference:

Kaplan, Jim. "He's Out From Under the Shadow." Sports Illustrated. 23 Apr. 1979. p. 64.