Brewers’ Billy Jo Robidoux Starts Out by Cleaning Up

In the final game of the 1985 season at Fenway Park, Billy Jo Robidoux of the Milwaukee Brewers hit two home runs, one a 400-footer above the center field wall, and created some misplaced expectations.

Robidoux immediately was tabbed as a slugger and placed among such touted rookies in the class of 1986 as Jose Canseco and Pete Incaviglia.

The Brewers are counting on the 22-year-old Robidoux, now the team’s starting first baseman and cleanup hitter, to drive in runs. But he won’t be swinging for the fences.

“I’m pretty much the same hitter I’ve always been,” he says. “I hit line drives and let the home runs come as they may.”

Robidoux put up some gaudy numbers at El Paso in the Double-A Texas League last summer, hitting .342 with 23 home runs and 132 RBI. He led the circuit in 12 categories en route to being named Most Valuable Player of both the league and the entire Milwaukee farm system.

The Brewers, then out of the pennant race, called him up in September and promoted him as a long-ball phenom, leaving fans with visions of Harvey’s Wallbangers of 1982 dancing in their heads. That Milwaukee outfit hit more home runs (216) than any major league team in the last 21 years.

“There was hype about me as a slugger,” Robidoux says, “but I’ve always been a line-drive hitter. I can hit it out, but I’m not the type who would change my swing to do it. I’m not going to be a low average, 35-home-run hitter.”

What he will be is a valuable hitter to have at the plate with men on base. Robidoux was batting .333 with eight RBI through his first seven games this season, and drove in at least one run in six of them.

“I want him up with a man on third base,” says Milwaukee manager George Bamberger, who put the rookie in the the No. 4 spot in the order. “I figure with Mike Felder, Robin Yount and Paul Molitor batting ahead of him, I have a good shot at men on first and third, and Billy Jo can drive it to the outfield in that situation.”

Robidoux relishes his role as RBI producer.

“I hit better with men on base,” he says. “I get pumped up and really want to move them over.”

The Brewers need a new source of run production since Cecil Cooper, their starting first baseman for nine years and the team’s MVP last year, is on the disabled list after surgery on his shoulder in December. Bamberger hopes he will return as a designated hitter by the beginning of May, though Cooper cannot throw yet and it is not known when he will be able to field.