After a mediocre season with Oakland — his major highlight was stealing 52 bases — he signed a free-agent contract with the California Angels. But in his first season with the Angels he was slumping badly, and the team hired Robinson, who had been fired as manager of the Cleveland Indians, as batting coach. “Don is so fouled up now that he needs a lot of work,” Robinson told Sports Illustrated.

Baylor recovered to have a good season. He blossomed in 1978 and 1979, when he hit 36 home runs, drove in 139 runs, batted .296 and easily won the M.V.P. Award.

By then, Baylor had established himself as a leader both on and off the field.

“There was no one more feared in the league coming into second base,” Bobby Grich, who played second base as a teammate of Baylor’s on the Orioles and Angels, told The Los Angeles Times in 2002. “He came in like a locomotive. And he had no weaknesses. He led through quiet example. He never let up. He played hurt. He could take a beating.”

Baylor never wanted to admit that being hit by pitches hurt him. But when the fireballing Nolan Ryan nailed him in the wrist, he called the Orioles’ trainer to freeze the injured area, which stayed numb for a year.

Bert Blyleven, a Hall of Fame pitcher who played with and against Baylor, recalled hitting him with a pitch that somehow got stuck under Baylor’s arm.

“He grabbed it and threw it back at me,” Blyleven said in a phone interview on Monday. “I looked at it to see if it was dented.”

Don Edward Baylor was born in Austin on June 28, 1949. His father, George, was a baggage handler for the Missouri Pacific Railroad; his mother, Lillian, was a school cook and cafeteria supervisor. He was one of the three African-American students to integrate O. Henry Junior High School.