Robin Yount

Lore & Background

Yount was drafted in 1973 and advanced to the major leagues one year later at the age of 18. He won two American League Most Valuable Player awards. In 1982, he led the Brewers to a World Series appearance. Yount was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999 in his first year of eligibility. Since his retirement as a player, he has held several roles as a coach.

Reader's Guide

Robin R. Yount was born September 16, 1955, in Danville, Illinois. He lived briefly in Covington, Indiana, then his family moved to southern California when he was an infant. He attended William Howard Taft High School in Woodland Hills, California. Yount was the third pick overall in the June 1973 Major League Baseball draft.

He made his major league debut in April 1974 at 18 years old. Yount is the last 18-year-old to hit a home run in the Major Leagues (Andruw Jones, Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, and Juan Soto are the most recent teenagers to hit Major League home runs, but did so as 19-year-olds). On September 14, 1975, he broke Mel Ott's 47-year-old record for most games played in the major leagues before turning 20. He threatened to retire in the winter of 1978 over salary and position concerns, but his demands were met.

He was an early proponent of weight training. Yount was an All-Star in 1980, 1982, and 1983. He led the American League with 210 hits in 1982, and that year won his only Gold Glove Award and his first MVP Award. In 1985, a shoulder problem forced him to move to the outfield; he became the Brewers' regular center fielder in 1986.

He narrowly won a second MVP Award in 1989. Yount collected 1,731 hits in the decade of the 1980s. On September 9, 1992, he collected his 3,000th career hit. He announced his retirement after the 1993 season.

The Brewers retired his number the next year. He was elected to the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame in 1995 and the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999. Yount holds Brewers career records for games, at-bats, runs, hits, doubles, triples, RBIs, total bases, walks and strikeouts. He posted a career .285 batting average with 251 home runs, 3,142 hits, 1,632 runs scored, 583 doubles, 126 triples, 1,406 RBI, 271 stolen bases and 966 walks.

His three All-Star appearances are tied with Ferguson Jenkins for the second-fewest of any Hall of Famer from the All-Star Game era. Yount served as first base coach and bench coach for the Arizona Diamondbacks from 2002 to 2004. He later served as bench coach for the Brewers in 2006 and again in 2008. In 2014, he was a special instructor in spring training for the Brewers.