I had a good relationship with Bill Russell. And with Frank Robinson, too. This column was prescient in its way as later developments played out. July 8: Frank Robinson Has Credentials Joe Namath in tears. Richie Allen in absentia. Willie Mays in a tiff with his manager. Ah, the superstars; life can be so difficult for them. They are surrounded by critics and bloodsuckers who reduce them to quivering hunks of neuroses. If only they could get away from it all, have meaningful relationships with meaningful people--while continuing to make meaningful money. And then again there is a rowdy-dowdy name Frank Robinson. A superstar, yet a real person with oomph in him, revelling in give and take. A man not hiding behnd insecurities and fears, or pouting about the injustice this cruel old world visits upon superstars. Robby is the leader of the cakewalking Orioles and a man with whom you can have a free and easy conversation just as if he were a mere mortal.
"Say Frank, how come you're always alive and with it when some of these other stars are afraid somebody is trying to pick their pockets all the time?" Robinson paused while getting dressed in the Baltimore locker room recently and said, "Is this this some kind of a needle?" "No needle. Why aren't you suspicious and afraid of hobgoblins? Willie Mays never got anything but a great press in New York, but when he comes in here, he's afraid of shadows and says things like, "I've got to be careful here." Robinson, who likes banter and idle questions, said, "You might consider how things are with Willie these days. He can't do some of the things the way he used to. He sees a guy like Willie McCovey on his own team doing more than him sometimes and maybe it bothers him. He can't be loose and easy. Things are getting tougher for him and maybe he never prepared himself for that." Things are happening around Mays. He has made an appearance in 69 of his team's 83 games, missing games not through injury but because he is tired. He recently got into a fuss with rookie San Francisco manager Clyde King, who said, "When I didn't see Willie in the dugout, I had to assume he was too tired to play, so I took him out of the lineup. I don't want to coax Willie into playing on nights when he's tired." Mays argued with King about it and then dismissed the incident as "just a bunch of hollering. It's all over now." The thing passed over without too many questions asked--which is the way Mays likes it. Robinson plays almost all the time, even when hurting. When young Oriole manger Earl Weaver said recently, "There are no stars on this team, we treat everybody alike," somebody wondered aloud, "Isn't that partly because your two stars, Frank and Brooks Robinson, make it that way by not acting like stars?" Weaver thought for a moment and said, "I guess that's true." A member of the Baltimroe entourage says, "Robinson is at the core of this team. He's one of the great needlers and he gets as much as he gives. He probably is the most avid reader of the sports pages among ballplayers, and he catches everything. If a reporter pokes fun at a ballplayer, Robinson passes it on to shake the guy up. The thing about him is he knows how far to go. He gets guys worked up, but not to a point of real anger." Robinson says, "Yes, I read the papers. Some guys say they don't read the paper when they are going bad. I make sure to read the papers when I'm going bad because you got to learn to take the bad with the good. And I really find out better about people when I see what they write when I am going bad.I even enjoy some of those things." Robinson is taking aim on a job as a big league manager. He is acquiring credentials, and it just happens there hasn't been a black big league manager. Robinson has wrapped himself in the game. He is a mentor to the young Baltimore players. He is taking on elder-statesman status even while being in the thick of the banter that keeps men loose. And beyond all that, he struck boldly this past winter, taking a job as a manager in the Puerto Rico league. Nothing bad happened. "I proved to a lot of people that I wasn't a hothead, that I could handle myself, the players and the umpires," he said. "The experience removed many of the doubts I might have had about myself. I enjoyed it. I recommend it to every active player; you gain immeasurably by it." When Branch Rickey picked Jackie Robinson to be the first Negro ballplayer in the big leagues, he wanted an intelligent man who would know how to turn the other cheek in the beginning. Jackie Robinson turned the other cheek in the beginning because that was what the times demanded. Now, the times demand nothing more than that the first black manager be a good baseball man and nothing but a man. Frank Robinson, who has survived being a superstar, qualifies on both counts.
Robinson, of course, went on to become the first black manager, taking over as manager of the Cleveland Indians, six years after this, in 1975. He managed through 1976 and into the 1977 season, thereby becoming the first black manager to be fired. He then managed the San Francisco Giants from 1981 into the 1984 season.
|
|
Congressman Powell Endorses Bill Bradley 
