Frank Robinson Baseball Quotations

Close don't count in baseball. Close only counts in horseshoes and grenades.

He does not carry himself as a prima donna-type superstar. But to me he is one of the top players in baseball if he's healthy.

You just don't like to see sloppy play. We're not playing good, crisp, sharp baseball in any aspect of the game right now. Period. It's going to have to pick up. It's focus, anticipation and concentration. That's what it is. We don't seem to really be there right now.

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 understand where he's coming from. He's been an All-Star second baseman. He is one of the best players in baseball because of his offense at that position... Moving your family and getting adjusted - it plays on a guy's mind.

Why put the burden on baseball to try and figure out where to go, and maybe put an asterisk? Just wipe the whole thing out.

What am I going to say to him? How to handle himself? Swing a bat, be successful and drive some runs in tonight. That's how I want him to handle himself. Other than that, I don't feel I have to go in and talk to him about how to handle himself on a baseball field.

It was unbelievable the way he pitched. His record should have been better. It took some growing up on the mound, understanding the situation, the pitches and the sequences of attacking the hitter. He is kind of strong-willed. We had to kind of fight through that wall of his to see it our way.

It's a relief for everybody, it really is. We get the distractions away from here and we can focus on baseball now.

Listen, I was the first black manager in baseball and there was incredible pressure. I don't blame anyone else. I was too tough . . . I lack patience. I probably got on guys a little too hard, with the wrong tone of voice.

Probably the most dramatic change in pitching I've observed in my years in baseball has been the disappearance of the knockdown or brushback pitch. This is why record numbers of home runs are flying out of ballparks, why earned run averages are soaring, and why there are so few twenty game winners in the majors.

He prepared you to go out and play baseball and have an opportunity to win ballgames, ... We were well organized. He knew the rules of the game. He executed the game fundamentally -- offensively and defensively. He could show you both ways. In the infield-fly rule, he would teach you how to do it defensively and offensively.