He was a giant, all right.
Frank Robinson Jr. -- no middle name -- was born on August 31, 1935 in Beaumont, Texas. Shortly after he was born, his parents split up, and his mother moved the children to the West Side of Oakland, California.
He went to McClymonds High School, playing on the baseball team with Vada Pinson and Curt Flood, and on the basketball team with Bill Russell. Within a few years, those 4 men would be followed by Southerners-turned-Oaklanders Willie Stargell and Joe Morgan.
In 1953, the Cincinnati Reds signed him with a bonus of $5,300. He made his major league debut on April 17, 1956. It was Opening Day for the Reds at Crosley Field. Robinson wore Number 20, played left field, and batted 7th.
In his 1st at-bat, he hit a ground-rule double off Wilmer "Vinegar Bend" Mizell, and later got another hit. Despite this, the Reds lost 4-2 to the St. Louis Cardinals, as Mizell outpitched Joe Nuxhall.
Frank went on to have one of the best rookie seasons baseball has ever seen, batting .290, with 83 RBIs, and 38 home runs, a major league record for a rookie that stood for 31 years. He also scored 122 runs, to lead the National League. He was named NL Rookie of the Year.
In a tight Pennant race, the Reds won 91 games, the Milwaukee Braves 92, and the Brooklyn Dodgers 93. It was the closest the Reds had come to a Pennant in 16 years.
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Frank would play 10 seasons for the Reds. While nobody knew about OPS+ then -- on-base percentage plus slugging percentage, adjusted for home park, and then compared to the league average, which is automatically set at 100 -- these were his 10 OPS+'s for the Reds: 152, 143, 125, 163, 179, 173, 183, 143, 170 and 161. Average: 159.
True, Crosley Field had a short left field fence (328 feet), but he was still one of the top hitters in the game at that point, along with Willie Mays and Hank Aaron in the NL, and Mickey Mantle in the American League.
In 1961, he batted .323 with 37 homers and 124 RBIs. He also led the NL in slugging percentage (which was known then) and OPS and OPS+ (which was not widely known then). He carried the Reds on his back, and led them to their 1st Pennant in 21 years. He was named NL Most Valuable Player, despite big years from his teammate Vada Pinson, and from Mays, Aaron and Orlando Cepeda.
The Reds lost the World Series to the Yankees in 5 games. But, at one point, he slid into 2nd base to break up a double play, and seemed to kick Yankee 2nd baseman Bobby Richardson halfway into the outfield, much as Hal McRae would later do to Willie Randolph in the 1977 AL Championship Series.
The Yankees were shocked. Someone suggested that this was National League baseball -- or maybe "Negro baseball." But no other player on an NL team, white or black, had done that against the Yankees in the World Series.
But Frank Robinson was aggressive. And cantankerous. To use an expression from his era, he was a "red ass" -- or "R.A." for sensitive ears. He was perhaps the greatest competitor in the game at the time.
In 1962, he had an even better year, stat-wise: .342 (which would remain a career high), 39 homers, 136 RBIs, and he led the NL with 134 runs, 51 doubles, a .421 OBP and a .624 SLG. A notorious plate-crowder, he also led with 11 times being hit by a pitch (he would peak at 18 in 1965), and led the NL in intentional walks for the 2nd of 4 straight seasons -- despite playing in the same League at the same time as Mays, Aaron, Eddie Mathews, Willie McCovey, Roberto Clemente, and the still-active Stan Musial.
He got hurt in 1963, and his stats went down a bit. He rebounded in 1964, as the Reds finished just 1 game behind the St. Louis Cardinals for the Pennant. He had another good-but-not-great season in 1965, and the Reds were not that close to the Pennant. Several of their players had gotten old, and their pitching wasn't what it should be. Indeed, of their 8 starters that season, only 2 would still be there the next time they won the Pennant: Pete Rose (and he wouldn't be playing the same position) and Tony Pérez.
There were also stories that the former McClymonds High teammates Robinson and Pinson didn't get along. There were also stories of cops in Southern Ohio, and just across the Ohio River in Kentucky, giving Robinson, one of the biggest names among black baseball players, a hard time for minor issues. And Robinson had recently turned 30. Fair or not, this round number stuck in the mind more than, say, 32, or even 35.
On December 9, 1965, the Reds traded Frank Robinson to the Baltimore Orioles for Milt Pappas, Jack Baldschun and Dick Simpson. Baldschun and Simpson were throw-ins, designed to make the trade a 3-for-1, so it didn't look like the Reds were trading Robinson even-up for a single pitcher.
Yes, the Reds needed pitching. Yes, Pappas was a good pitcher. And if they had hung onto him longer -- say, through 1970, when he could have started for them in the World Series against Robinson and the Orioles -- the trade might not look so bad in hindsight.
Still, given Robinson's stats, why would the Reds trade him? Bill DeWitt, owner of the Reds (and father of Bill DeWitt Jr., now owner of the Cardinals) defended the trade, saying Robinson was "not a young 30." This eventually got twisted into the more familiar "an old 30."
DeWitt didn't realize that Robinson's best year was about to arrive.
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The Orioles finished 3rd in 1964, 2 games behind the Yankees; and 3rd again in 1965, 8 games behind the Minnesota Twins. They had a fantastic 3rd baseman in Brooks Robinson (a white Southerner who who would joke about being confused with Frank, "Can't you see we wear different numbers?"), a powerful 1st baseman in John "Boog" Powell, former Chicago White Sox sparkplug Luis Aparicio at shortstop, and some good pitching. But they didn't seem to have much of a spark.
Manager Hank Bauer immediately named Frank Robinson his team Captain. He embraced the role, and the Orioles -- a short drive in distance (if not in time, given Washington, D.C. area traffic) from the South (Virginia) -- and with several Southerners on the roster, embraced him.
On May 8, he hit a ball over the left-field bleachers at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, off Luis Tiant of the Cleveland Indians, landing in the parking lot, 460 feet from home plate, and bouncing until a car stopped it, 540 feet away. It wasn't the longest homer hit at the stadium -- Frank Howard hit one to straightaway center that went 470 -- but it was the only fair ball hit out of the stadium in its 38 major league seasons.
Until the Orioles left in 1991, an orange flag with black letters reading "HERE" marked the spot where the ball cleared the stadium. During the final home series in 1991, the flag was among the items auctioned off for charity.
Memorial Stadium, especially prior to the building of the DiamondVision board in 1985, which changed the wind currents, was a pitcher's park. But in 1966, Frank Robinson batted .316, had a .410 OBP, a .637 SLG, a whopping 208 OPS+ (meaning he was 108 percent better at producing runs than the average player that year), hit 34 doubles and 49 home runs, and had 122 RBIs. His batting average, home runs and RBIs all led the AL, giving him the Triple Crown.
Just as he had done with the Reds 5 years earlier, he put the O's on his back, and led them to a Pennant -- the 1st Pennant for the franchise in 22 years, since they were the 1944 St. Louis Browns; and the 1st Pennant for a major league team from Baltimore in 70 years, since the earlier version of the Orioles won the NL Pennant in 1896. The O's won the Pennant by 9 games over the Twins, and pulled a stunning upset over the defending World Champion Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series. Frank hit home runs off Don Drysdale in Game 1 and Game 4.
He tailed off a little in 1967, and a lot in 1968 -- a year in which everybody tailed off, as it was "The Year of the Pitcher." He hit a lot better in 1969, finishing 3rd in the MVP voting behind Harmon Killebrew and Boog. The O's won 109 games, and beat Killebrew and the Twins in the 1st-ever AL Championship Series. But in an even bigger shock than their own '66 upset of the Dodgers, they were beaten in the World Series by the New York Mets. Frank's 3-for-16 performance at the plate was a notable reason why.
They were more determined than ever to make amends in 1970. They won 108 games, swept the Twins again, and, given their loss the year before, were set as underdogs in the World Series to Frank's former team, the Reds. Frank hit 2 home runs in the Series, and Brooks put on the all-time 3rd base fielding clinic. The Orioles won the 1st 3 games, dropped Game 4, and then, in Game 5, as they had in 1966, clinched at home.
On September 13, 1971, Frank hit a home run off Mike Kilkenny of the Detroit Tigers. It was the 500th home run of his career, making him only the 11th player to reach the milestone. The Birds won the AL Eastern Division again, beat the Oakland Athletics in the ALCS, and took a 3-games-to-1 lead over the Pittsburgh Pirates in the World Series. But, with Clemente every bit as determined that time as Frank was in 1966 and '70, the Pirates won Game 5, and then took Games 6 and 7 in Baltimore to win the Series.
That would be the end for Frank as an Oriole player. On December 2, 1971, a seemingly still young 36, he and Pete Richert were traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers for Doyle Alexander, Bob O'Brien, Sergio Robles and Royle Stillman. Again, the O's got the better half of the deal: Alexander helped them win the 1973 and '74 AL East titles, while the Dodgers went nowhere in 1972. That season, for the 1st time in his career, Frank wore a number other than 20: With Don Sutton having that number, he was given 36, and it never looked right on him.
The Dodgers then sent him down the freeway, trading him, Bill Singer, Bobby Valentine, Billy Grabarkewitz and Mike Strahler to the team then known as the California Angeles, for Andy Messersmith and Ken McMullen. The most interesting thing about this trade was that Singer would become the 1st, and still the only, pitcher ever to throw no-hitters for both L.A. area teams -- and the same catcher would catch both, Jeff Torborg, who had also caught Sandy Koufax' perfect game in 1965.
The 1973 season was the 1st for the designated hitter in the AL, and Frank became the Angels' 1st DH. He was also reunited with Pinson, and if there was any trouble between them in Cincinnati 8 years earlier, it was now gone in Anaheim. Frank hit well for the Angels, defying Anaheim Stadium's reputation as a pitcher's park.
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After the 1973 season, Yankee owner George Steinbrenner saw manager Ralph Houk quit, and he had to scramble to find a new manager. He considered hiring Frank Robinson -- which would have made him the 1st black manager in the major leagues, a little over a year after a dying Jackie Robinson spoke at the 1972 World Series, and said he wanted to "see a black face managing in baseball."
Think about it this way: It's been 45 seasons since that moment, and, with a few stray games -- Tony Peña substituting after Joe Torre or Joe Girardi had been thrown out of games, or missed games for personal reasons, and the occasional end-of-season game when Torre or Girardi would let a veteran player manage -- the Yankees have still never had a nonwhite manager. The Mets didn't hire one until Willie Randolph in 2005.
But George didn't care about making history: He wanted the best man for the job, and, in the Autumn of 1973, having already been denied the right to hire Dick Williams by Oakland Athletics owner Charlie Finley, he thought that was Frank Robinson.
Gene Autry, the legendary entertainer who owned the Angels, wouldn't let Robinson go. Was it because Autry didn't want a black manager in MLB? No. Was it because he simply didn't want to lose Frank? No, as you'll soon see. It was because he didn't like George, and didn't want to give him the satisfaction.
Nevertheless, Autry could have named Frank the 1st black manager in the major leagues, but on September 12, 1974, he traded Frank to the Cleveland Indians for Ken Suarez, Rusty Torres and cash. (The last part is ironic: The Indians were constantly short on cash, and Autry was one of the richest owners. In another irony, the next manager Autry hired was Dick Williams.) Frank wore 33 for the rest of that season, and then was given his usual 20.
After the season, Indians manager Ted Bonda fired manager Ken Aspromonte. Who to hire? Bonda knew that, racial history aside, Frank was qualified for the job. He'd been Captain of a 2-time World Series winner, and had managed in the Caribbean Winter Leagues. Bonda knew that if he didn't hire him as manager, somebody else might, and he didn't want to lose him.
So, on October 3, 1974, he did the right thing for history, as well as the right thing for his team. He signed Frank at a salary of $175,000 to do both jobs. Frank said his only regret was that Jackie, no relation, didn't live to see the day.
On April 8, 1975, for the 1st time, an MLB regular-season game was played with a black manager. Frank had already posed for the cover of Sport magazine, handing a lineup card to the cameraman. Now, at Cleveland Municipal Stadium, in front of 56,715 fans, he did it for real, giving his lineup card to home plate umpire Nestor Chylak, who would join Frank in the Hall of Fame.
Frank continued to play through the 1976 season, but, like his contemporaries Aaron, Mays and Mantle, seriously declined in his last 2 seasons. He last inserted himself into the lineup on September 18, at Municipal Stadium, against the Orioles, as a pinch-hitter for Frank Duffy in the bottom of the 8th. He singled to left off Rudy May, driving in a run, and then called Alfredo Griffin out to pinch-run for him. But the Orioles won the game 3-2.
Frank finished his playing career with a .294 batting average, 2,943 hits including 586 home runs, 1,812 runs batted in, and a doozy of an OPS+, 154. At the time he retired, he was 4th on the all-time home run list, behind Aaron (755), Babe Ruth (714) and Mays (660). Since then, he has been surpassed by Barry Bonds (762*), Alex Rodriguez (696*), Albert Pujols (633 and still active going into the 2019 season), Ken Griffey Jr. (630), Jim Thome (612) and Sammy Sosa (609*).
Still, getting close to, but not past, a .300 batting average, 3,000 hits, and 600 home runs has led a lot of people to overlook him. He didn't play in New York like Mantle and Mays. He didn't break the home run record like Aaron. He didn't get 3,000 hits like Mays, Aaron and Clemente. And -- lucky for him -- he didn't die young like Clemente.
He isn't even particularly remembered for his World Series heroics, like such other stars of his era: Mantle (several times), Sandy Koufax (1963 and '65), Bob Gibson (1964, '67 and '68), Tommie Agee and Ron Swoboda (1969), his own teammate Brooks Robinson (1970), and Clemente (1971). As if the O's would have reached the '66, '69, '70 and '71 Series without him.
Ted Williams, as keen an observer of baseball as has ever lived, said that Frank Robinson was the most overlooked great player ever. Broadcaster Bob Costas calls him the most underrated player ever. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in his 1st year of eligibility, 1982 -- and still sort-of missed the spotlight, as Aaron went in at the same time. There's an irony: Aaron was overlooked for a long time, before he approached Ruth's 714, but now, he was causing someone else to be overlooked.
The Reds, the Orioles and the Indians have all put statues of Frank outside their current ballparks. All of them retired Number 20 for him. Mike Schmidt grew up in Dayton, Ohio as a Reds fan, and Frank was his favorite player. Frank was the reason Mike wore Number 20, and his own was retired by the Philadelphia Phillies.
In 1999, The Sporting News polled baseball experts to put together a list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players. Frank came in at Number 22. In 2005, President George W. Bush, a former owner of the Texas Rangers, awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the closest thing America has to a knighthood.
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As it turned out, Frank wasn't nearly as good a manager as he was a player. He would manage the Indians to a 79-80 record in 1975, and 81-78 in 1976. By the Indians' post-1950s standards, this was pretty good. But concentrating on managing, not playing, didn't seem to help him in 1977: The Indians were 26-31 when he was fired.
The California Angels also made a managerial change that year, hiring Dave Garcia, and he took Frank on as a coach. In 1978, he returned to the Orioles as a coach under his former manager, Earl Weaver.
In 1981, the San Francisco Giants hired Frank. The 1st man to win MVPs in each League was now the 1st black manager in each League. In 1982, he won 87 games, finishing just 2 games behind the NL Western Division winners, the Atlanta Braves. But the Giants tailed off, and he was fired late in the 1984 season. He was picked up as a coach by the Milwaukee Brewers, and in 1985, the O's took him back as a coach.
In 1988, the Orioles lost their 1st 21 games, a major league record. After the 1st 7 games, manager Cal Ripken Sr. was fired, and Frank was handed the reins. He couldn't do much, and they still lost 107 games, a shocking amount for a non-expansion team.
But in 1989, they took off. Signs were made, reading, "WHY NOT?" with the O in "NOT" in the Oriole script. They battled the Toronto Blue Jays for the AL East title to the last weekend of the season, but were eliminated on the next-to-last day. The O's won 87 games, tying Frank's career high, and he was named AL Manager of the Year.
But the injury bug struck the Birds, and he was fired early in the 1991 season. He was, however, invited back for the team's closing ceremonies for Memorial Stadium. MLB hired him as Director of Discipline, making him the guy who decided who should be punished for what, and how much.
In 2002, he was hired one more time, by the Montreal Expos, a team that had been stripped bare of players and other resources by team owner Jeffrey Loria, who sold them back to Major League Baseball, which hired him, and then moved them to the Nation's Capital for the 2005 season, becoming the Washington Nationals. In spite of these difficulties, Frank managed them to 83 wins in both 2002 and 2003. In 2005, the 1st season after the move, he got them to .500, 81-81.
Ironically, the team Bush once owned, the Texas Rangers,
had been the previous D.C. team, the Washington Senators.
But after a 71-91 season in 2006, he was told he would not be coming back as manager. He was offered a front office role with the team, but declined. On October 1, 2006, at the conclusion of his 51st season in Major League Baseball, he managed the Nats to a 6-2 loss, and addressed the crowd at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington.
His career record as a manager was 1,065 wins and 1,176 losses, for a .475 percentage. He only had the 2 real Pennant races, with the '82 Giants and the '89 O's. He did well when he had the horses, but when injuries struck, there wasn't much he could do.
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About those 51 seasons. When Frank Robinson first wore a major league uniform, MLB had 16 teams, none further south than Cincinnati or further west than Kansas City. None played on artificial turf or under a dome, and 11 were playing in stadiums that opened before World War I. Baseball was still struggling to become fully racially integrated. Dwight D. Eisenhower was in his 1st term as President, the Cold War was raging, and hardly anybody had a color television set.
When he last wore a major league uniform, MLB had 30 teams, from coast to coast and from border to border, people were already sick of artificial turf, several stadiums have retractable roofs, and of the 35 MLB stadiums in which he had played, only 9 were still in use. George W Bush was in his second term as president, the war on terror was going on, and pretty much everybody had a mobile phone with Internet access.
Frank was named honorary President of the American League, although his only real function was to hand the League's championship trophy to the Pennant winner on television.
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In addition to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York -- where his plaque shows him wearing an Oriole cap -- he was named to the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame, the Baltimore Orioles Hall of Fame (he and Brooks Robinson were the 1st 2 inductees), the Cleveland Indians Hall of Fame, and the Washington Nationals Ring of Honor (which honors contributors to D.C. baseball, including the Senators and the Negro Leagues' Homestead Grays).
In 1961, Frank met Barbara Ann Cole, a pioneer among both African-Americans and women in real estate. They married that year, and lived in her hometown of Los Angeles during the off-season, having 2 children.
After a battle with bone cancer, Frank Robinson died today, February 7, 2019, in Los Angeles. He was 83 years old.
Had he never managed a game, his place as one of baseball's greatest players would be secure -- even if he was even greater than most people realized.
But he did manage in the major leagues, before any other nonwhite person. And that makes him a figure more important than nearly everyone in the game's history.
With Frank's death, there are now 9 surviving members of the 1961 National League Champion Cincinnati Reds: Joey Jay, Jim Maloney, Claude Osteen, Eddie Kasko, Leo Cárdenas, Johnny Edwards, Jay Hook, Joe Gaines and Cliff Cook.
There are now 8 surviving members of the 1966 World Champion Baltimore Orioles: Brooks Robinson, Luis Aparicio, Jim Palmer (all in the Hall of Fame with Frank), Boog Powell, Davey Johnson (who made the last out in the Mets' 1969 World Series win and managed them to their 1986 World Series win), Russ Snyder, Andy Etchebarren and Wally Bunker.
There are 13 survivors of the 1970 World Champion Baltimore Orioles: Brooks, Palmer, Boog, Davey, Etchebarren, Merv Rettenmund, Pete Richert, Dick Hall, Tom Phoebus, Terry Crowley, Eddie Watt, Dave Leonhard and Bobby Grich.
There are only 2 living Triple Crown winners, the last 2: Carl Yastrzemski (1967) and Miguel Cabrera (2012).
And of the 19 players who appeared on the TV show Home Run Derby in the Winter of 1960, only 4 are still alive: Hank Aaron, Rocky Colavito, Al Kaline and Willie Mays. The others were, in alphabetical order: Bob Allison, Ernie Banks, Ken Boyer, Bob Cerv, Gil Hodges, Jackie Jensen, Harmon Killebrew, Jim Lemon, Mickey Mantle, Eddie Mathews, Wally Post, Frank Robinson, Duke Snider, Dick Stuart and Gus Triandos.
UPDATE: Frank Robinson's final resting place is not publicly known.
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