Frank Robinson, the first black manager in Major League Baseball history and the first manager of the Washington Nationals, died Thursday. He was 83.
Robinson was a Hall of Famer, a two-time World Series winner and a baseball pioneer. He played for 21 years, mostly for the Cincinnati Reds and the Baltimore Orioles, and became the first player in history to win Most Valuable Player of both leagues.
He turned to managing later in life and was in charge of the Montreal Expos when they moved to Washington and became the Nationals.
“The fans in the street were excited about having a team back,” Robinson told MLB.com in 2015 about baseball’s return to Washington. “They didn’t care whether we won or lost. We had a terrific first half (of the 2005 season). It couldn’t go any better.”
Robinson managed Washington for two seasons. The team finished 81-81 in 2005 and 71-91 in 2006. He is now a member of the Nationals’ Ring of Honor.
As a player, Robinson faced racist taunts and segregation in the early 1950s, when Jackie Robinson’s breaking of the color barrier was still fresh. He broke into the majors in 1956 and won NL Rookie of the Year by hitting 38 home runs for the Reds.
In 1966, his first year with the Orioles, Robinson won the Triple Crown for leading the American League in batting average (.316), home runs (49) and RBI (122). Only two Triple Crowns have been achieved since then.
He won the 1966 World Series with Baltimore in a four-game sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers and was named World Series MVP. He went on to win his second World Series in 1970.
Robinson finished his playing career with a few seasons split between the Dodgers, the California Angels and the Cleveland Indians. He hit 586 home runs in his career, which was fourth all-time at the time of his retirement and still 10th place today.
While still playing for the Indians, the team elevated him to player-manager, the first time an African-American was the manager of an MLB team. He remained Cleveland’s manager for one year after his retirement from playing and also went on to lead the San Francisco Giants, the Orioles and the Expos.
Robinson was a first-ballot Hall of Famer, inducted in 1982. The Orioles, Reds and Indians all have retired his jersey No. 20. And President George W. Bush awarded Robinson the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005.
He’s also responsible for the famous quote, “Close don’t count in baseball. Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades,” which he said in a 1973 interview with TIME Magazine.
WBAL was the first to report that Robinson had passed. It was reported in January that Robinson was in poor health.
• Adam Zielonka can be reached at azielonka@washingtontimes.com.
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