Frank Robinson
Frank Robinson
Frank Robinsonis an American former Major League Baseballoutfielder and manager. He played for five teams from 1956 to 1976, and became the only player to win league MVP honors in both the National and American Leagues. He won the Triple Crown, was a member of two teams that won the World Series, and amassed the fourth-most career home runs at the time of his retirement. Robinson was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBaseball Player
Date of Birth31 August 1935
CityBeaumont, TX
CountryUnited States of America
Those are the things that we talked to him about a little bit last year. We wanted to see that, but he didn't do those things. Now he is seeming to be doing that and having success.
I'd certainly prefer to finish fourth than finish fifth. There's a stigma to that: last. 'You finished last, last year.' And after the start we had, ... that just kind of throws cold water completely on the whole season right there.
It's already out there now. It's just like it happened last year, one guy starts to complain about it, the next guy picks it up a few games later when they hit a ball pretty decent. Then it starts to spread. To say management doesn't care about winning, that's way off base.
It was probably the best game he's pitched in the last five or six ball games. His knee is getting better each start, and he is getting back to where he normally would be: that is hitting the corners with his pitches and changing speeds.
It might not last until we get to San Diego. But it certainly should show these guys what they're capable of doing if each individual would go up there and do what he's capable of doing, and think about it being a team effort.
What I think they've done the last three days is play the way they're capable of playing. Their attention is now on baseball itself and not a lot of outside stuff, and it's starting to show up on the field.
We're not going to have the kind of club that's going to just outscore teams. We're going to need good pitching along with timely hits. That's what worked for 90 games last season.
Absolutely, I knew it was a good move. If we needed to make a move at shortstop, it wouldn't be a drop-off defensively. ... We didn't have that last year.
Actually, I wouldn't mind another week down here. Not to play games, but just to work on fundamentals. We didn't win many games, but, maybe just in the last week, we started looking a little better. Before that, we looked terrible.
He has been our offensive weapon the last month. Another big game from him. At least he is a threat up there at the plate now, which makes a big difference down in the bottom of the lineup.
He is doing the things that we've asked him to do last year and tried to get him to do and he is doing them now and you have to say, it's two games but it's two games in a row he did those things. If he continues to do that, that's what we want from him and that's what we have to have from him if he is going to make this ball club.
But if you finish over .500, you can say, 'We can go from here. If we win 'x' number of games more than we won last year, we can win this thing.'
I'm walking around a lot better than the last time it happened,
He's a professional. He takes the ball. He's not always healthy when he goes out there, but he doesn't complain about it. He just gives you the best he can possibly give you. It was the same way last year, even though we were really trying to protect him with that knee, he still wanted to throw as many innings as he possibly could.