Playing for 21 seasons, mostly with the Cincinnati Reds and the Baltimore Orioles, Robinson was the only winner of the Most Valuable Player Award in both the National and American Leagues.
He was an intense and often intimidating presence, leaning over the plate from his right-handed stance, daring pitchers to hit him (which they did, 198 times), then retaliating with long drives, “pounding pitchers with fine impartiality,” as the baseball writer Roger Kahn once wrote. He broke up double plays with fearsome slides.
As a player, Robinson insisted that teammates match his own will to win. As a manager, he had little patience with lack of hustle.
Robinson won baseball’s batting triple crown in 1966, hitting 49 home runs, driving in 122 runs and batting .316 in his first season with the Orioles and helping the team capture a World Series championship for the first time in franchise history.
Source: Richard Goldstein, The New York Times
It’s difficult to say a HOFer was underrated but Robinson was in the era of Mays, Mantle, Aaron, Clemente. The man was a solid hard nosed player and you don’t have to look any further than the 9th inning of Game 5 in the 1969 WS. On the grounder to 2B by Boog Powell, Robinson broke up the DP with a rolling slide into 2B. Had he hit Buddy flush he would have ended up in LF. RIP Frank.