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Posts: 2285
Member Since: 10/27/03
Aug 7 07 12:03 PM
Quote:Robinson's first year with the Angels was thus a bounceback season for him, posting a .266 average while pasting 30 homers and driving in 97 RBIs. But while his performance was everything Dalton and the Angels had hoped for when they acquired him, the team was seething with unmet expectations, posting a losing 79-83 record, in part due to a combustible bullpen. In 1974, his power was in marked decline, hitting only 22 homers on the year, driving in a mere 68 runs, yet he led the club on both counts. Worse, inexperienced manager Bobby Winkles admitted he felt intimidated by the future Hall of Famer. Robinson didn't help matters, criticizing his manager in the press. It all lead to a clubhouse meeting in which Winkles told the team he had asked Dalton to trade Robinson. Dalton, who had previously refused to get involved, did so on June 26, firing Winkles. Dalton took Winkles' request to heart in September: with only 15 games left to play, he traded Robinson to Cleveland.Teammate Nolan Ryan later wrote in The Other Game that "[Robinson] tried to manage the Angels while he was playing with them, and he was a disruptive factor on the team...." It surely explains the prickly and often confrontational manager he became after retiring in 1976.
Quote:"I didn't read the book, and I won't read it," Robinson said. "I'm not knocking Billy Beane or anything. That's his approach to it. Some players can hit late in the count. Some players cannot hit late in the count. I'm not going to force a player to work the count and make him take pitches early in the count or take strikes, and try to get a walk or get in a more-desired hitters' count if he's not comfortable. Why try to force that on them?"
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