Frank Talk

Apparently, Scioscia thought it was safe to get in this senior citizen's grill and try to show up one of the game's fiercest players. Luckily for Scioscia, four umps were just barely enough to keep Robinson out of roundhouse range.

Scioscia was mad because Robinson caught one of his pitchers cheating and got the umps to throw Brendan Donnelly out of the game. Having been outwitted, Scioscia, who likes to play the hard guy, thought he could at least intimidate an old man.

From the '50s into the '90s, Scioscia would never have gotten so close to Robinson's face, yelling what -- on replays -- looked like curses; back then, anybody who bellied up to Frank with his yap flapping would soon have been on his back, flopping like a salmon. But Robinson never expected anyone in baseball would treat him with such disrespect, just because he'd been outsmarted in the late innings of a close ballgame.

And near Los Angeles no less, a place where Robinson played for the Angels and one he has called home for much of his adult life.

So, caught off guard, it took Robinson a fraction of a second to decide to go after Scioscia. "He took me by surprise," said Robinson, almost apologetic that he hadn't quite gotten close enough to land a Darth Robby wallop.

What happened next was beautiful, except perhaps to baseball pastoralists. The benches cleared. Jose Guillen, who was expelled from the Angels last season after a screaming match with Scioscia, came to the defense of the manager that he has quickly adopted as a grandfather figure and role model. Three Nationals coaches managed to drag Guillen back into the dugout before he could fulfill his heart's desires and get suspended for weeks.

In the next inning, Scioscia demanded the umps inspect Gary Majewski's glove, just as Robinson had asked that Donnelly's glove (lathered with illegal pine tar) be examined. All the umps could pin on Majewski was that one string hung down too far. So, snip, the problem was solved. No ejection. Just a Scioscia sulk.

The best drama was yet to come. (If you have satellite TV, you might even have seen it. Otherwise, too bad.) The Nats trailed 3-1 in the eighth when Guillen, batting with a man on, got the chance he deeply wanted. Scot Shields, who's held hitters to an average under .170, threw a sidearm slider on the low inside corner. Such a pitch shouldn't be hit. Guillen's laser beam home run ricocheted off the back wall of the Angels' bullpen so hard that it flew back over the fence and landed in the outfield.

Guillen did a disdainful bat flip, yelled into the dugout toward Robinson, who gestured back, then, as he crossed home plate, pounded the hands of the waiting Nationals hitters. The score was tied, 3-3, but the game was over.

Scioscia is a superior manager. But it's going to take a long time for the image to fade of a burly prime-of-life ex-catcher trying to bully a man who was winning fair fights in the big leagues before Scioscia was born.

When Robinson was 46, he managed the Giants. Can anybody imagine him doing to a distinguished soon-to-be-70 Hall of Famer what Scioscia tried to pull on Robinson?

It is inconceivable.

"There's nothing [Scioscia] can say to me now. Nothing," said Robinson. "I don't even want him to approach me. I don't want him to try to apologize to me. If he even thought about it, I will not accept it."

A hard man. A hard team. It's no coincidence. Anyone who separates them now is a fool.