50 years ago, Robin Yount made his big-league debut at age 18 for the Brewers

Fifty years ago, Robin Yount made his big-league debut with the Milwaukee Brewers at age 18. Now, a new youngster is having his moment.

April 5 marks the 50th anniversary of Robin Yount's debut, the first game for an 18-year-old who was perhaps still a bit overmatched when he broke camp with the Milwaukee Brewers in their fifth season of existence.

He would obviously not be overmatched for long. Yount became the greatest player in franchise history, enjoying a 20-year career that landed him in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

The anniversary is neatly aligned with the first few days of 20-year-old Jackson Chourio at the big-league level. On Wednesday, he became the youngest player since Gary Sheffield in 1988 to homer with the Brewers. Chourio is the youngest big-leaguer to homer since Washington's Juan Soto in 2018.

He'll bring a five-game hitting streak into the team's sixth game of the season, the first of three against the Seattle Mariners.

Here's a few nuggets about Robin Yount's debut:

Robin Yount didn't exactly start out on fire in 1974

Yount didn't get a hit in his first game in 1974, officially going 0-for-1 with a walk in two plate appearances.

In his debut, he lasted six innings in a 9-8 loss to Boston, and while he didn't commit an error, Yount did make a crucial defensive miscue. In the third, he fielded a ball and stepped on second base for what looked like an inning-ending double play off the bat of Carl Yastrzemski, but the runner spiked him on the shin, and Yount bounced a throw to first base. Boston went on to score five runs.

The runner who got in Yount's way? Cecil Cooper, who would be traded to the Brewers in 1977 and spend the final 11 years of his career in a Brewers uniform. In fact, Cooper made more all-star teams as a Brewer (five) than Yount (three, weirdly).

Yount did start a double play later and also saved a run by interrupting a rundown between first and second base to throw a runner out at the plate.

"The kid played all right," Brewers manager Del Crandall said. "Sure, he made mistakes. Sometimes we get the opinion that Luis Aparicio or somebody never threw a ball away. Robin is going to learn. He will learn from that play when he got hurt. Not only did he get spiked, but he didn't make the play. Sometimes that's the ideal way to learn. Overall, I was very impressed with Robin."

George Scott also praised Yount.

"He's one of those kids who come along once in 10, 15 years," the veteran first baseman said.

Brewers manager Del Crandall had also started his big-league career as a teenager

Crandall had been the one rolling the dice on Yount to let the 18-year-old start the season with the big-league club. Crandall, a native Californian, became the youngest starting catcher in baseball history at age 19 with the Boston Braves in 1949 and wound up taking second behind Dodgers pitcher Don Newcombe in the rookie of the year voting.

When the Braves moved to Milwaukee, so did Crandall, who made eight all-star teams as a Milwaukee Brave. He homered in Game 7 of the 1957 World Series at Yankee Stadium to help the Braves win the game, 5-0, and the lone World Series title in city history.

It was Crandall's second-to-last year as Brewers manager.

"I told him yesterday he had made the team," Crandall said in late March 1974. "He broke out in a grin. That was the first sign of emotion I've seen him display.

"I like his talent and I like his makeup. It was the talent that really impressed me at first, then his makeup. When we didn't find any flaws, we made up our minds that he'd be the one to open at shortstop."

In 2012, Crandall re-told the Yount story.

"So I went to my general manager, who was Jim Wilson, and I asked him if there was any reason why an 18-year-old kid could not start on our ballclub," Crandall recalled. "And he says, 'Look, we don’t have much. What do you want to do?' And I said I want to play him. I think we had about 15 games left on our spring training schedule. I said I want to play him every day and see how he handles the 0-for-4s and how he handles the boots and he handles some adversity.

"And he was just tremendous. He had just great, great makeup. So he started the season with us. It was just that obvious that he could play, and then it was just a matter of could he play at a major-league level enough so he could gain confidence and help the ballclub, and he could do that."

Robin Yount had to wait a long while for his first hit

Yount wouldn't get a hit in his first four games and didn't homer until his sixth game … then didn't hit another one until his 59th game on June 22. In real time, he had to wait a full week of big-league baseball before his first hit, which came April 12 against Baltimore. Yount singled off starting pitcher Dave McNally in the fourth and scored on Don Money's double as the Brewers rallied for three runs in the inning despite ultimately losing, 5-3. The hit snapped an 0-for-10 streak to start his career.

"I was thinking, 'It's about time,' Yount said. "I wanted the first one. It's just too bad I made those two errors."

Indeed, Yount had made his first two official errors in the big leagues, bobbling a grounder in the sixth and throwing a double-play ball into the dugout in the seventh.

"I feel all right out there now," Yount said. "I'm trying to relax a little more. But I'm still a little tight."

"The first hit really isn't that significant because it's only one hit," Crandall said. "But it's nice to get it out of the way."

Robin Yount's first homer came one day later, moments after another big error

On April 13 against Baltimore, not only did Yount hit his first career home run, it was a big one in a 3-2 win. The blast leading off the eighth came moments after the Orioles had tied the game … on Yount's two-out mishandling of a bad hop.

"All he's ever done since he's been with us is impress everybody," said Brewers starter Kevin Kobel, himself just 20 years old, who missed a chance at his first big-league victory because the error allowed the game to get tied. "There's not a guy on the team who doesn't like him. No one who doesn't think we can win with him in there."

"Now you see why he's here," Crandall said, who said he didn't think about pinch hitting for Yount in that spot. "Did it bother him? The tying run just scored from third base and what did he do? He just picked the ball up and went back to his position. That's maturity. That's why we kept him."

Yount only had three home runs in 242 at-bats over 64 games at Newark, his lone partial season of professional baseball before the big leagues after the Brewers drafted him third overall in 1973. He said many of the home runs he hit in high school were because the fields didn't have fences.

Yount finished the 1974 season with a .250 batting average and a .622 OPS, and he was still a few years away from being an above average Major Leaguer offensively. But by 1980, he was an all-star at age 24 — and a seven-year big-league veteran.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Brewers legend Robin Yount made his big-league debut 50 years ago