Robinson Won’t Take Credit for Orioles’ Success : Manager Points to Others for Team’s Surprising Finish

BALTIMORE — Inside Baltimore Oriole Manager Frank Robinson’s office at Memorial Stadium, there’s a computer updating the latest scores, a TV connected to a satellite dish and executive-style furniture. But alas, there’s no genius.

Robinson detests that word, especially when it comes to baseball. Oh, he’d accept the American League Manager of the Year award without hesitation. But don’t count on him getting overly excited.

The award means you were smart for one season. This season. No guarantees. “I know I’m not that good,” he says one moment. “It wasn’t just me,” he says the next. Personal humility? No. Baseball humility.

The phrase “Why Not?” applied not just to the Orioles’ worst-to-first quest, but also to Robinson’s style. He managed in bold, almost reckless, strokes. If he sometimes resembled a genius, well, so be it.

It was that kind of season for the Orioles, who remained in contention for the American League East title until the final weekend -- one year after starting 0-21 and losing a club-record 107 games. It may never happen again.

“You’re absolutely right,” Robinson says. “That’s why you don’t sit here and pat yourself on the back when you have success. You know you’re at the mercy of the players. Sometimes it’s different from one year to the next.

“You play that hunch, that gut feeling, and it works. The next year, you’ve got the same hunch, and it doesn’t work. You look like an idiot. But it has been that kind of year. I know I’m not that good.”

To which Robinson’s supporters say: Hogwash. The Orioles’ 32 1/2-game turnaround was the third-best in major-league history (since 1900). They did it with a team made up of rookies, rejects and Ripkens.

Robinson could name only two of his nine starters at the start of spring training: left fielder Phil Bradley and shortstop Cal Ripken Jr. He wasn’t even certain rookie Gregg Olson would make the team, much less become his closer in the bullpen.

From this emerged a team that held first place hostage for 98 straight days. Opposing managers recognize the Orioles could not have emerged as classic overachievers without a framework for success.

“I’m not one who believes a manager makes up the lineup card and then sits back and watches the game,” Oakland’s Tony La Russa says. “He’s had a lot to do with the atmosphere on the team, staying determined. He has definitely done it right.”

But where did Robinson’s role end and the players’ begin? The question is impossible to answer, but looking back, there does not appear to have been any mysterious secret to the way Robinson managed the Orioles in 1989.

He squeezed every ounce of production from his players through deft handling of his lineups and pitching staff. And he never wavered from the relaxed, day-by-day approach he instilled in spring training.

Looking back, it doesn’t seem complicated, but both plans required foresight, a quality in which most major-league managers often are lacking. Of course, Robinson operated under unique circumstances this season.

He had a contract guaranteeing him two years salary and a future management position. He had club President Larry Lucchino and General Manager Roland Hemond supporting his desire to rebuild with younger, more athletic players.

And yes, in a very real sense, he had nothing to lose. Yet shortly before the All-Star break, Detroit General Manager Bill Lajoie said, “It seems to me he has a very methodical, thought-out plan in his use of players.”

In other words, the Orioles were no accident. On Opening Day, Robinson introduced a dynamic new offense. It would have given Earl Weaver motion sickness. But Robinson, lacking sluggers, saw no choice.

As he puts it, “We had to play that way to be successful.” No longer were the Orioles a plodding team. They hit-and-run. They went first-to-third on singles. They bunted, and they stole bases.

They finished with 118 steals and 63 sacrifice bunts, 71 and 58 percent increases over their 1988 totals. Four players stole second and third in the same game, including Rene Gonzales, who had only two steals in 1988.

“He had better players than a year ago, younger players whom you can’t bridle,” Milwaukee Manager Tom Trebelhorn explains. “You have to give them a certain amount of freedom to relax and get the most out of them.”

Hemond agrees, but adds, “It takes a manager with some daring. You recognize at times it will bite you.”

And that was only half of Robinson’s equation. The other half, his use of players, required a different type of intuition.

Lineups? Robinson tried 112. Rookie Steve Finley batted third in his first major-league game Opening Day. Slap hitter Joe Orsulak hit fourth with the season on the line Friday night. Thirteen Orioles had 25 or more RBI. That tied Minnesota for most in the league.

Starting pitchers? Robinson tried 10. Opening Day starter Dave Schmidt became a reliever. Seven-year minor-leaguer Dave Johnson became a starter. Then, when the race intensified, Robinson manipulated the size of the rotation, reducing it from five pitchers to four to three, squeezing, squeezing, always squeezing.

Even one of the Orioles’ most disgruntled players, first baseman Jim Traber, concedes Robinson was “very fair.” First-base coach Johnny Oates says, “He has certainly given everyone an opportunity to be part of it. No one has gotten buried here. No one sat for no reason at all.”

If Robinson is remembered for one thing this season, it will be his patient, almost fatherly, approach. The “new Frank” shocked those who recalled his fiery reigns in San Francisco and Cleveland. But Robinson vowed to remain patient, and for the most part, he did.

The approach worked on two levels -- individually and collectively. Robinson drew praise for his steady hand during the Orioles’ 1-13 collapse. But Hemond also remembers his careful handling of third baseman Craig Worthington, who was batting .199 on June 13, but wound up leading major-league rookies with 70 RBI.

“What he conducted was a seminar on how to manage,” Hemond says. “He really didn’t deviate from his style since Opening Day. He kept the club on an even keel. That’s the prime factor in the club having this type of consistency. It’s an extension of the manager.”