If you didn’t know better, you would have thought the story was placed in the paper for the purpose of giving a sports talk show host a topic of conversation.

Or even worse, the piece was there as what’s called clickbait, an online headline that is so intriguing or inflammatory that it practically begs a reader to click on it to read, thus attracting traffic that otherwise wouldn’t pay attention.

The piece in question ran in the local newspaper earlier this month under the headline Manny Machado aspiring for the career of the best third baseman to ever play, Adrian Beltre.

Beltre, for the baseball uninitiated, is a third baseman for the Texas Rangers. He broke into the majors at age 19 and has spent more than 17 seasons in the big leagues.

His career batting average, as of Sunday, is a sparkling .284 and he has 402 home runs in his career. He needs just 322 hits for 3,000 and he has won four Gold Gloves, emblematic for defensive excellence at his position.

To top it off, Beltre, who is in his fifth season with the Rangers, was named as a member of the Franchise Four, a sort of Mount Rushmore for the team’s history in Texas.

In the story, Machado said quote “You see his track record. He’s going to go down as the best third baseman to ever play the game. He’s somebody I would look up to, and hopefully, I have half the career he’s had unquote.

On their face, Machado’s comments are entirely understandable and appropriate given his age and station in baseball life. He is just 23 years old and he is a third baseman. Adrian Beltre is what he knows.

The problem is that what Machado says flies in the face of what every Orioles fan has known for over 50 years and that’s that Brooks Calbert Robinson is the greatest third baseman in baseball history, hands down, end of discussion.

In 23 blessed seasons, Robinson amassed a lower batting average with fewer home runs and RBI than Beltre. And it just doesn’t matter because Brooks leads Beltre in three numbers that matter most.

He has a Most Valuable Player trophy, one more than Beltre. He has two World Series rings, two more than Beltre. And he has 16 Gold Glove. That’s right I said 16, 12 more than Adrian Beltre.

Look, Brooks Robinson retired in 1977. Manny Machado was born in 1992. For Machado, Robinson might just as well be Babe Ruth, another guy who isn’t on SportsCenter every day.

But if you’re going to live and work in a town, isn’t it just a little incumbent on you to know a little of that place’s history?

Someone, maybe his manager Buck Showalter, ought to sit Manny Machado down and show him highlights of the 1970 World Series, where Brooks Robinson single-handedly terrorized the Cincinnati Reds at bat and in the field to win Most Valuable Player honors.

After that, if either Machado or Adrian Beltre even dreams of being as good a third baseman as Brooks Robinson, they’d better wake up and apologize.

Check out the audio of this blog at WYPR