Game 70: Frank Robinson - Chicken and Walnuts

Nearly eight years ago, two teenage Angelenos unwittingly gave birth to one of the internet’s most powerful gifs: The Lakers Bros. Its sustained power is in its simplicity. You don’t need to know what the Lakers Bros were cheering about (a Kobe and-1 layup) to find joy in the way Lakers Bro #1 emphatically whips off his sunglasses. You don’t need the context of their crisp just-bought-from-the-Team-LA-store Dwight Howard t-shirts to smile every time he whips off his glasses or, in a popular reversed version, whips them on like David Caruso in 16x speed. Basketball can be entirely removed from this image and it still works. I’ve seen this gif hundreds of times over the last eight years and so have you. It’s snaked its way into every crevice of digital life. You log on, therefore you’ve seen it.

Which is why I can’t believe that I only just realized that the late Frank Robinson, the trailblazing Hall of Fame MLB outfielder/manager and longtime Lakers season ticket holder, is seated directly in front of the two blissed out, slack jawed Bros having the time of their life.

When Frank Robinson died from bone cancer in February 2019, the Lakers noted his passing in a tweet. Robinson wasn’t involved with the franchise in any capacity besides his decades-long fandom, but his was a life worth celebrating, one that was as trailblazing as Jackie Robinson’s, albeit in Frank’s signature fiery fashion. Frank, who was 12 when Jackie broke the color barrier in 1947, once told Sports Illustrated that he could never do what Jackie did. He was referring to Dodgers GM Branch Rickey’s famous quote about wanting a player “with the guts not to fight back” when taunted by racist fans and players. “They told him not to fight back, not to say anything,” said Frank. “There's no way I could have done that.”

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Frank Robinson was raised in Oakland, one of 10 children born to his mom and raised solely by her after his dad split. He was a baseball standout who played in the under-19 American Legion Baseball and a high school teammate of future pro sports labor pioneer Curt Flood. The young Robinson, so skinny that his nickname was “Pencils,” was also a basketball teammate and lifelong friend of the NBA’s most winningest champion, Bill Russell. With the doors open to black players thanks to the work of Dodgers like Jackie Robinson, Don Newcombe, and Roy Campanella, Frank was signed to the Cincinnati Reds in 1953 and made his big league debut three years later. In his first year, he slugged 38 home runs and put up a .936 OPS on his way to the Rookie of the Year Award and the first of 14 All-Star selections. Robinson was phenomenal in his 10 seasons as a Red, where he won the MVP Award in 1961 and also attained a reputation for “trying to maim people” as Don Zimmer put it. Like a proto-reality star, Robinson told SI that he wasn’t trying to “win friends. Just ballgames.” That win-at-all-costs mentality included regularly spiking and crashing into opposing players (you really didn’t want to play 2nd base against the Reds) and getting into bloody fights. Pitchers, who Frank’s #1 enemy, had no choice but to defend their teammates by throwing at the Reds’ star slugger. One of Frank’s records, one that I bet he wore with bruised pride, is his #9 spot on the list of MLB’s hit by pitch leaders.

Throwing at Frank was a mistake, one that drove him to become even more hell-bent to beat the shit out of the team who tried to knock him down. "Pitchers did me a favor when they knocked me down," Robinson told reporters. "It made me more determined. I wouldn't let that pitcher get me out.” Opposing sides eventually got the message: Phillies manager Gene Mauch started fining pitchers who kept throwing at the perennial MVP candidate. That temper wasn’t just limited to opposing pitchers or teammates who missed easy fly-balls. Frank wasn’t lying when he said he couldn’t be the genteel representative of black people to White America that Branch Rickey demanded of Jackie Robinson. As a minor leaguer, Frank once chased a group of taunting, racist fans with a baseball bat. And in a notorious incident shortly before his 1961 MVP season, he and some friends got into an argument at a diner with some white customers. The police arrived soon after to arrest Frank’s friends, but not the white customers or celebrity ballplayer. When Frank returned to the diner later that night, the owner brandished a knife. But Frank let him know what kind of fight this was when he took out his gun. Frank was arrested and charged with possession of a concealed weapon.

Incidents like these were part of the reason he was traded to the Baltimore Orioles following the 1965 season. It certainly wasn’t his statistics, one of the only bright spots for a Reds organization that made the playoffs just once during Robinson’s tenure. But the Reds thought he was washed up at his age: “Not a young 30” is the quote often attributed to Reds owner Bill DeWitt. The ensuing trade -- Frank Robinson for Milt Pappas and two others -- became one of the most lopsided trades in MLB history. Robinson would win the MVP again, becoming the first and still only player to do so in both leagues, and win the World Series in his first year as an Oriole. He would win another four seasons later.

By the time Robinson wrapped up his playing career in 1976 after stints with the Dodgers, Angels, and Indians, he had staked his claim as one of the greatest power hitters the league had ever seen. When he retired, Robinson’s 586 home runs listed earned him the #4 spot on the all-time list, only behind Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, and Willie Mays. But years before his retirement, Robinson had already begun laying the groundwork for his 2nd act: Becoming Major League Baseball’s first black manager.

It started in Puerto Rico, where Robinson spent his offseasons as the first African-American manager of Santurce, a Winter League team. The respect Robinson had earned as a player made him the inevitable choice to become MLB’s first black manager, it was just a matter of who would give it to him. The California Angels had a chance, as they fired manager Bobby Winkles midway through the 1974 season and knew Robinson was itching for the opportunity to manage. But instead they traded Robinson to Cleveland in the waning weeks of the season. Following the end of the season, the Indians promptly named Robinson as manager and convinced him to stay on as a player-manager. On Opening Day 1975, Robinson wrote himself into the starting line-up as the DH and hit a home run on his first at-bat. In typical Robinson fashion, that dinger was born out of pure focused rage towards the opposing pitcher. Robinson fouled off a nasty 0-2 slider on the previous pitch, a pitch that he felt was an insult.

““You know what, this guy is trying to embarrass me on my day, in front of my fans here on Opening Day by striking me out on three pitches. He’s not even respectful enough to try to waste a pitch on me.” - Frank Robinson, “Change Up: An Oral History of 8 Key Events That Shaped Baseball””

For the next 30 years of his life, Frank hopped back and forth between the dugout and the executive suite. His years as manager for the Indians (1975-1977), Giants (1981-1984), and Orioles (1988-1991) were peppered in with brief forays in the front office with the Orioles and with Major League Baseball itself. He was serving as baseball’s Director of Discipline in 2002 when MLB pegged him to become the new manager of the Montreal Expos. The struggling franchise was owned by the league at the time and he deftly led them in their transition to become the Washington Nationals, which coincidentally included 22 home games played in Puerto Rico, the country where Robinson began his managerial career.

While the Expos posted back-to-back winning records with Robinson at the helm, his old school managerial style began to rub his players the wrong way. In 2005 and 2006, he was named the league’s worst manager according to a players’ poll taken by Sports Illustrated. And in 2006, Robinson broke one of the unwritten rules of baseball by taking out his catcher, Matt LeCroy, in the middle of an inning. LeCroy, who had a knee riddled with bone spurs, gave up seven stolen bases and made two errors. Robinson was so broken up by his decision that he famously cried while explaining his actions in the post-game decision. LeCroy, who later went on to become a manager himself in the Nationals’ minor league system, didn’t take it personally. But the new ownership group that moved the team to Washington wanted a fresh start that didn’t involve the septuagenarian manager and fired him following that season.

With his final managerial job in the books, Robinson retired from the dugout and spent his remaining years doing what he loved most: Going to Lakers games with his wife of over 50 years, Barbara Ann Cole. The couple met in 1961 and bought a home in Los Angeles in 1973. Ever since then, Frank was a familiar sight at Lakers games in his season ticket seat behind the basket. The NBA season starts up just after the conclusion of the World Series and its regular season ends just as baseball’s Opening Day begins, so he didn’t miss many games even while he was playing, managing, or playing-managing. His presence was seen at “virtually every Lakers home game” throughout the years at The Forum and Staples Center. The Jerry West era, the Showtime years, the Shaq & Kobe Dynasty, and that one game where a couple of annoying teenagers became immortalized in the internet’s favorite bitmap image format… Frank saw it all. And he probably told those two kids to shut the hell up while he was at it.

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Chicken and Walnuts

1 3-pound fryer, boned, or 2 chicken breasts, boned and skinned

1 red bell pepper, cut into ½-inch cubes

1 green bell pepper, cut into ½-inch cubes

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1 cup walnut halves

2 tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon sherry

1 egg white

2 to 4 cups oil for frying

2 tablespoons bean sauce

¼ cup chicken stock

Cut chicken into ½ inch cubes. Add salt, egg white, and cornstarch. Mix thoroughly with hands. Deep fry chicken in hot oil 2 minutes. Remove and drain. In same oil over low heat, deep-fry walnuts in strainer until golden brown. Set aside. Drain oil. Reheat 2 tablespoons oil in wok. Add bean sauce. Stir 3 minutes. Lower heat. Add sugar. Stir 30 seconds, then add sherry and stock. Stir until dark brown. Turn up heat. Pour in chicken and pepper. Stir-fry quickly 1 minute. Remove to platter. Sprinkle fried walnuts over chicken and serve.

Shortly before COVID-19 hit U.S. shores, one of those countless, interchangeable Twitter accounts run by right-wing grifters compared American supermarkets to those in Cuba or Venezuela or whatever demagogue they had chosen for that day by throwing a dart at their Mercator projected map. Our supermarket had fully stocked shelves. Theirs didn’t. Nevermind that our fully stocked shelf was 27 different varieties of canned tomato sauce. Nevermind that America is the richest country in the world but most of its citizens avoid doctor visits for the fully justifiable fear of a bill that will financially ruin their lives. We have 27 different varieties of canned tomato sauce.

I thought about that when going to Albertsons in early April 2020 while wearing medical gloves and a bandana so I didn’t die in an overcrowded hospital in the richest country on earth. I was risking my life to buy walnuts. The supermarket, the great post-war symbol of United States purchasing strength, was out of walnuts. So I went with almonds. Frank would’ve probably yelled at me for the substitution.

The supermarkets also didn’t have any bean sauce but I gave the great American Experiment a pass on that. If it was still safe to make repeated trips to the supermarket, I would’ve gone to my local Thai grocery instead of trusting that Albertsons’ Asian section would have what I needed.

Like a lot of Goldstein and Gasol recipes, I planned a take-out order in case this recipe failed the taste test. The frying coat -- 1 egg white and a tiny bit of salt and corn starch -- did not give me hope. I ended up frying the chicken far longer than 2 minutes to get them to look sort of golden brown. Probably 15 minutes. I’ll take dry, flavorless chicken over pink chicken anyday.

For the sauce, I substituted hoisin sauce for the bean sauce and madeira for sherry. If you want enough sauce to fully cover any rice you eat with this, double it. The sauce smelled great but I was worried my chicken would ruin the dish. Turns out, I cooked perfectly puffy fried chicken that was somehow still juicy in the middle. Who would’ve thought that Frank Robinson of all people would perfect a healthier looking Panda Express entree?