Jackie Robinson’s daughter, in KC, reflects on legacy of Frank Robinson and her father
Sharon Robinson took a contemplative moment to gather herself and her thoughts while nodding her head as she unstrapped microphones from her top on the Alex Gordon Field inside the Kansas City MLB Urban Youth Academy.
Robinson, the daughter of baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson, visited the KC Urban Youth Academy — about a block away from the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum — on Friday as part of an MLB event scheduled to coincide with both Black History Month and baseball’s year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s birth.
When a reporter brought up the name Frank Robinson, that resonated with Sharon Robinson.
Frank Robinson, no relation, died on Thursday at the age of 83 after having lived the life that included being a trailblazer in his own right as the first black manager in Major League Baseball.
“It’s a hard loss,” Sharon Robinson said. “He was still a relatively young man. My mom is 96, so I think anybody in their 80s is still young. He accomplished so much in his lifetime, and that’s what we look at.
“It’s not about how long anyone lives. It’s the fact that they were with us and we are better people for having had him with us for all these years. He was a big part of the baseball family, so all of us in baseball will miss him.”
Those words carried an immeasurable amount of weight and also rang with a bit of eeriness. After all, her father Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball and withstood blatant racism and threats against his life. He died at age 53.
In one of his last public statements, Jackie Robinson called out baseball for not yet having a black manager in October 1972. He died less than two weeks later.
While her father didn’t live to see Frank Robinson become the first black manager, Sharon Robinson described Frank; his wife, Barbara; and their daughter Nichelle as being like family. Sharon Robinson also said she and her family, who were in Los Angeles as on Tuesday to visit Frank one final time, were “devastated” by his loss.
Sharon Robinson, who lives in Florida, serves as an educational consultant for MLB. She manages a program for the league called “Breaking Barriers: In Sport, In Life.”
Originally, students from the Faxon Elementary School were slated to be part of the event, both through a breaking barrier essay contest as well as MLB’s Play Ball youth series that includes baseball and softball stations. However, weather conditions and school closings canceled that event.
Sharon Robinson instead toured the Urban Youth Academy’s facility on East 17th Terrace while being briefed by the academy’s director, Darwin Pennye, and manager of communication/outreach Angel McGee about the programs offered. Royals general manager Dayton Moore also attended the event.
The academy serves boys and girls ages 6 through 18 and provides training in both baseball and softball free of charge and includes after school and summer educational programs.
Pennye, who played minor-league baseball, said approximately 300 youths come through the academy per week, and he said some of the students who’ve gone on to play at college or junior college use the facility during their semester breaks. He also pointed out members of the Royals organization who work in various careers have come in to give presentations.
“We want to be great stewards of the game,” Moore said. “We want to provide a lot of opportunity for young people, use this as a platform to grow leaders, and really serve our urban core and hopefully inspire the youth of this city, this 18th and Vine District, this entire Kansas City Region, to play baseball and softball. To have a facility like this and everything Darwin Pennye and his staff are doing on a daily basis is putting us in a really good position.”
The $21 million complex, which opened in 2018, includes four outdoor turf fields and a 38,000-square-foot indoor facility that includes a turf infield, four batting tunnels and four classrooms, including an athletic training room.
The outdoor fields will host tournaments, and Moore said he hopes the facility will help with the economic development in the area.
He also said the the C You in the Major Leagues Foundation he founded would put on five weeks of camp this summer with a goal of providing scholarships for 500 youths to attend for free.
“What I want to see done is for us to bridge the gap between the urban and suburban and rural parts of Kansas City,” Moore said. “I want kids from all ethnic and races and economic backgrounds playing baseball and softball together. That’s the greater vision of what we want to see happen.”
This story was originally published February 8, 2019 at 2:42 PM.
