Baylor was able to take anything thrown at him

They don’t make ’em like Don Baylor anymore.

Even if some are trying to take us back in time, the world, thank goodness, is a different place.

Hard-nosed, intelligent and an old-school gentleman, Baylor, a true Texas legend, died Monday after more than a decade-long battle with multiple myeloma. He was 68.

Baylor — the 1979 American League MVP, 1985 Roberto Clemente Award winner and 1995 National League Manager of the Year — isn’t a Hall of Famer, but when the story of baseball is told, it will be difficult not to mention his name.

A rugged player and a born leader who went on to become the Colorado Rockies’ first manager, Baylor never backed down from a fight. Sought some out, actually.

Forget Pete Rose. Ray Fosse

described Baylor as the “most aggressive player I’ve ever seen.”

He owned his part of the plate. Baylor held the modern-day record for most times hit by a pitch, getting plunked 267 times in his 19-year career, until the Astros’ Craig Biggio broke it in 2005. Do note: Baylor played without the Game of Thrones armor in which Biggio ensconced his exposed body parts.

Baylor stood strong in the box and recalled just one pitch that brought more pain than he could handle. In 1973, a Nolan Ryan fastball numbed Baylor’s wrist for an entire year.

Baylor took his base like a gentleman when he was hit. He took to the mound like a man ready to fight if he thought he was beaned.

“There was always that confrontation,” he told the Houston Chronicle in 2004. “You’re not going to beat me, and I’m not going to give in. I’m going to be right here. If you hit me, I’m coming right back again. I’m going to be right on the plate, and you’re not going to move me off the plate.”

Barrier breaker

The Austin native, who grew up when water fountains and pretty much everything else were segregated along color lines, broke barriers. In 1961, he was one of three black kids who were the first to attend O. Henry Junior High. (Lance Berkman would later become the second major leaguer to come from O. Henry.)

The school set aside one football jersey for a black player, because, you know, it’s not like a white kid could ever wear a uniform a black child had previously worn.

When that jersey was given to the other black boy at his school, Baylor wasn’t allowed to play. The next year, after the football coach got a glimpse of Baylor playing flag football, a second jersey for a black kid somehow materialized.

Baylor went on to star at Stephen F. Austin High School, enduring racial taunts from ignorant fans while becoming one of the top athletes in the state. He was the only black player on the baseball team and, to the chagrin of some teammates, became the first black captain of the squad.

The school tradition of cheerleaders walking players to class on the Fridays before games carried on. But Baylor and other black players didn’t have cheerleader escorts like the rest of the team.

UT’s Royal missed out

He could have, make that should have, been the first black football player at the University of Texas — the school he grew up dreaming about playing for — but Darrell Royal wasn’t as serious about integration as he needed to be.

Baylor, who also excelled at basketball, planned to play baseball and football in college. Royal offered him a scholarship but made it clear he wouldn’t allow him to play baseball.

“I think that was his way of telling me the time wasn’t yet right,” Baylor said.

Baseball was right for him, though. After being drafted second overall by the Orioles in 1967, he signed a contract and never looked back. (Technically, his father had to sign for the then 17-year old.)

When he showed up at his first spring training, he said he didn’t care who the outfielders were at the time, because once he got into a groove, he’d be all right.

The nickname Groove stuck.

He didn’t make it that year, but the following year he was a minor league MVP before making his MLB debut in 1970 with two hits and three RBIs.

Nineteen years later, he hung em up with 366 home runs, 2,135 hits and 1,276 RBIs.

He didn’t put up alltime-great numbers, but he left a great impression wherever he went.

And as the old heads say, he played the game the right way.