Frank Robinson

American baseball player and manager

• Born: August 31, 1935
• Birthplace: Beaumont, Texas
• Died: February 7, 2019

Robinson, one of professional baseball’s most reliable power hitters, was named Most Valuable Player in both the National and the American leagues, the first player to achieve that distinction. He also became the first African American team manager and the first black person to manage in both leagues.

Early Life

Frank Robinson was born to Frank Robinson, Sr., and Ruth Shaw in Beaumont, Texas. He grew up in Oakland, California, where he attended McClymonds High School and played basketball with Bill Russell. Robinson signed his first baseball contract with the Cincinnati Reds in 1953 and played with the minor league team in Ogden, Utah, in the Pioneer League. After playing Double A minor league baseball in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Single A in Columbia, South Carolina, Robinson was promoted to the Reds, and the major league, in 1956. His salary was six thousand dollars for the year.

In his first major league at-bat, Robinson hit a fastball that bounced off the outfield wall for a double. His first-season batting average was .290, and he had 83 runs batted in (RBIs) and 38 home runs, a performance that earned him the National League’s Rookie of the Year award.

Life’s Work

Early in his career Robinson got a reputation as a problem player with a fierce temper. His aggressive playing style, particularly on the base paths, earned him a label as a dirty player who would go out of his way to spike opposing infielders. Robinson maintained that his style simply was about wanting to win ball games.

In the first ten seasons of his career, Robinson hit consistently for a high batting average. He topped .300 five times, batted in more than 100 runs four times, and hit 25 or more home runs eight times. He led the Reds to the National League pennant and was voted the National League’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) in 1961.

The Reds, assuming that at thirty years of age Robinson was past his prime as a player, traded him to the Baltimore Orioles at the end of the 1965 season. The season that followed was one of the greatest of Robinson’s career. He won the coveted baseball triple crown--the batting, home run, and RBI titles--and led the Orioles to the World Series. He was named the American League MVP for the season, the first player to win MVP in both leagues. Robinson followed his first season with the Orioles by helping the team win three consecutive pennants (1969–71) and the World Series in 1970.

Robinson first became active in the civil rights movement as a player in Baltimore. After witnessing the city’s segregated housing and discriminatory real estate practices firsthand, he became an enthusiastic speaker on racial issues. Earlier, he had declined an invitation to become a member of the NAACP because he did not want to be a spokesperson for the organization.

Robinson stayed with the Orioles through the 1971 season, then was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers for the 1972 season, beginning an odyssey that saw him play for the Dodgers (1972), the California Angels (1973–74), and the Cleveland Indians (1974–76) over the next five seasons. Robinson’s playing days were coming to an end. (He retired as a player in 1976.) Already in the late 1960s, he realized that he wanted also to be a team manager. Orioles manager Earl Weaver helped him get a managing job with the Santurce Crabbers of the Puerto Rican winter leagues, a job Robinson held from 1968 to 1975. Not only did his team win the pennant in 1968, but also Robinson was named the leagues’ manager of the year.

In 1975, the Cleveland Indians named Robinson a player-manager, which made him the first black manager in major league history. His term as manager of the Indians lasted only three years; he frequently argued with team management and players. In 1978 he was manager of the Rochester Red Wings, the Orioles minor league team, and he became the first African American manager in the National League when he signed a contract with the San Francisco Giants. He later joined the Orioles and was awarded the American League Manager of the Year Award in 1989 for leading the team to an 87-75 record, a huge turnaround from their previous season in which the team won only 54 games (and lost 107).

Robinson’s style of managing was controversial, but he defended his style by claiming that what he knew and felt about a particular game and its players, and not statistics, were more important to him when making his decisions as a manager. In a June 2005 Sports Illustrated magazine poll of 450 major league players, Robinson was chosen the worst manager in baseball.

In 2000, Robinson became one of the highest placed blacks in organized baseball when Commissioner Bud Selig appointed him to a newly created position: disciplining players involved in on-field altercations. Robinson approached his job as a hardliner, not surprising given his history as an unrelenting, determined player.

After spending a few years as the “director of discipline,” Robinson again turned to management: the Montreal Expos (2002–4) and the Washington Nationals, from 2004 through 2006. (The Expos moved as a franchise and became the Nationals after the 2004 season.) When the Nationals beat the Philadelphia Phillies in a game on April 20, 2006, the win gave Robinson one thousand career victories as a manager. He became only the fifty-third person to reach that milestone. He had reached one thousand losses, however, two seasons earlier.

The Nationals’ management declined to renew Robinson’s contract for 2007, though he was welcomed to spring training in an unspecified role. Robinson wanted either a front-office job or a consultancy position, so he declined the offer. On October 1, 2006, he managed his final game, a 6-2 loss to the New York Mets. Before the game he was at the center of an emotional farewell at RFK Stadium in Washington, DC He ended his managerial career with 1,065 wins and 1,176 losses.

In addition to his two MVP awards, Robinson was honored in 1966 with the Hickok Award as the top professional athlete of the year. In 1999 he was ranked by Sporting News as one of the all-time greatest baseball players. Finally, he was nominated as a finalist for the All-Century Team of Major League Baseball. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on November 9, 2005, and received the first Jackie Robinson Society Community Recognition Award at George Washington University in 2007, marking the sixtieth anniversary of the integration of Major League Baseball.

Following his career as a manager, Robinson rejoined the offices of Major League Baseball. From 2007–9, he served a special advisor for Baseball operations. He was the special assistant to the commissioner from 2009 to 2010 and the Senior Vice President for Major League Operations from 2010 to 2011. In 2012, he became the Executive Vice President of Baseball Development.

Significance

Robinson’s twenty-one seasons as an active player were seasons of consistent, reliable, and powerful hitting. His career batting totals include a .294 batting average, 586 home runs, 1,812 runs batted in, and 2, 943 hits in 2,808 games played. At his retirement, his 586 career home runs were the fourth best in history, though as of 2013, he was ninth on the all-time list. Unusual for a star in the era before free agency, Robinson split his best years between two teams.

Robinson also will be remembered for his role in integrating baseball management, becoming the first African American to manage not only in the majors, a major feat itself, but also in both leagues of the majors. Furthermore, he was outspoken in criticizing baseball’s racism. His own success as a player and manager, and his overcoming racial barriers, like Jackie Robinson and many other professional athletes before him, ensured that he would have a spot in baseball, sports, and civil rights history.

Bibliography

Armour, Mark L., and Malcolm Allen. Pitching, Defense, and Three-Run Homers: The 1970 Baltimore Orioles. Lincoln : U of Nebraska P, 2012. Print.

Cowherd, Kevin. "Frank Robinson's Historic Homer out of Memorial Stadium Remembered." Baltimore Sun, 7 May 2013. Web. 9 Dec. 2013.

Jacobson, Steve. Carrying Jackie’s Torch: The Players Who Integrated Baseball, and America. Chicago: Lawrence Hill, 2007. Print. A cultural history of the African American pioneers of baseball who followed in the footsteps of Jackie Robinson, the first black player in professional American baseball. Includes the chapter “Most Valuable Attitude: Frank Robinson Made Them Better.”

Nightengale, Bob. “Frank Robinson hired as MLB executive vice president.” USA Today. Gannett Co., 26 June 2012. Web. 9 Dec. 2013.

Robinson, Frank, and Dave Anderson. Frank: The First Year. New York: Holt, 1976. Print. Robinson’s first autobiography, with emphasis on his early life and his playing days in Cincinnati.

Robinson, Frank, and Al Silverman. My Life Is Baseball. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1968. Print. An autobiographical account of Robinson’s career in baseball, with a focus on his playing days.

Robinson, Frank, and Berry Stainback. Extra Innings. New York: McGraw, 1988. Print. An autobiography that emphasizes the challenges Robinson faced as the first African American manager in the majors.

Ross, Charles K., ed. Race and Sport: The Struggle for Equality On and Off the Field. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 2004. Print. A history of race, racism, segregation, and equality issues in baseball and other sports in the United States.