Partly Cloudy, 64°
Bert Robbins '13, star second baseman for the Brown baseball team, has an unparalleled work ethic. His drive and desire are off the charts. It is impossible to quantify the amount of hustle he brings to the field each time he sprints out to his position. Luckily, these positive-sounding key words make up for the fact that Robbins conceivably has no clue how to play the sport of baseball.
"He always sticks around, about an hour after everyone's left, just taking extra cuts in the batting cage," Head Coach Robert Franklin said of his scrappy second baseman. "After that hour goes by, I inevitably have to walk into the batting cage and tell him he needs a bat and that he shouldn't be cutting down the mesh that makes up the batting cage. But still, the heart is there."
"We've had to keep hiring new sets of umpires, because each time a new crew sees him play, they just fall in love with him," Franklin continued. "You try saying no to that face. As in, 'No, Bert, you can't just run in place for 20 minutes. That's not what pitching is'."
Robbins has, as of press time, been selected for 12 preseason All American Teams. Officials from the NCAA were especially impressed by his intangibles, including the time when he sprinted to first base, although the game was all but over, seven hours after the game had ended and all the other players had left.
"For a while, I thought I had enrolled in a seminar on ancient wooden tools, and that for some reason it had seasons and off-seasons," Robbins said, when he finally calmed down from hustling so much. "Then, when I found out that I was actually participating in a 'sport,' I was overjoyed, because I don't know the meaning of the word 'quit.' Or 'tiptoe.' Or 'box-cutter.' Please, someone tell me what these words mean."
"I always like to give 110 percent when I'm on the field playing barsebael," Robbins continued, before the reporter informed him that the sport was called "baseball." "I run out to second brace, put on my mittens, and then sprint all over the right side of the in-out until I get tired. Which is never, because I'm such a sparkplug!"
"I watch every game," said lifelong season ticket holder Frank Wood, "and I have never seen a more exciting baseball player than Bert Robbins. His determination and guile and … diving and … guts … yeah, okay, it's actually becoming pretty clear to me that I don't really know what baseball is either."
Robbins' style of play has drawn acclaim from all over the baseball landscape. From ESPN's constant praise of Robbins' leadership to announcer Tim McCarver's declaration that Robbins should "win a series of awards that haven't even been created yet, in addition to stealing Derek Jeter's gold glove from his cold, overrated hands," laudatory comments are the norm. Mass media has universally fallen in love with Robbins ever since he first set foot on a basketball court, then was politely directed towards the baseball field, at which point he fell over.
