My vintage card of the week: The 1957 Topps Brooks Robinson rookie card. Brooks was my first strong link to baseball history and vintage baseball cards when I was a junk wax kid. I was only two years old when he retired, but my father always spoke fondly of him and was able to secure some personalized autographs for me through a work friend when I was 11 years old. Those autographs sparked my fascination with the human vacuum cleaner and the dominant Orioles teams of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. He’s been a favorite ever since.

Brooks’ stats speak for themselves:16 gold gloves. 2 World Series championships with a WS MVP. 18 all-star appearances with an AS MVP. And, of course, the MVP award in 1964 that cemented his legacy as more than just a defensive wizard. But beyond the numbers and the records, Brooks was the heart of Baltimore and a hall-of-fame human being. A true class act. When I came back to the hobby as an adult, my first collecting goal was to put together the full run of Brooks’ Topps cards. I still get more joy out of upgrading that run over the years than I get from most other collecting goals.