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Old 02-09-2012, 09:39 AM
theshleps theshleps is offline
Michael
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Join Date: May 2009
Location: HI
Posts: 2,130
Default Frank Robinson

My son batboyed for team USA when Frank Robinson was manager and they were doing practice games in Maryvale in Phoenix.
There is a superfan named Suzie who has a deep voice and comes to the games in AZ (mainly Dbacks) and cheers on each player. Even if they are just having a catch- she'll yell "great catch or something like it". She is well known to AZ fans. The players didn't know how to relate to her. One day Suzies voice was saying its usual accolades but Suzie was nowhere to be seen. It turns out that Frank was imitating Suzie from the dugout. You'd have to be there to appreciate it, but it was hilarious.
Despite my son and Frank having many neat conversations, Frank only signed one autograph for Noah for all the time they spent together. Noah had some 1960's Topps RBI and HR leader cards that were partially signed already but Frank would turn him down. Frank would say "maybe you'll get me someday".
Noah would yell from the dugout a cheer he learned in school to the batters "stroke it and poke it". He didn't understand the sexual connotations. Within a few days Frand was yelling it to. I once paid $65 to get Frank to sign a picture of he and Noah and to inscribe- stroke it and poke it. he refused to inscribe.
I ran into Frank at the winter mlb meetings a few years ago. We spoke about Noah and he remembered him. I said Frank can you sign this card or Noah's and he said no.
One more story- not a HOFers but since our collection specializes in HOF and Jewish- we own Shawn Greens AAA home jersey from Syracuse. We went to the DBacks spring training camp in Tucson not knowing if we'd get it signed or not as it was quite crowded and we didn't know Shawns signing habits. Shawn and the rest of the team came out about 50 yards away to warm up. Noah was wearing the jersey. Shawn looked over (50 yards away) and sprinted over to Noah to get a look at the jersey. He was amazed that we had it. He signed it and posed and was amazing. A few weeks later Noah saw Shawn outside of Phoenix muni and remembered him and they talked for 20 minutes.
Noah has alot of these stories and times we shared together. As a result we can rarely root for a team- just individual players as each team is a mix of great guys and not so great guys
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