Ages of Defiance

"The more you manage, just like the more you play, you should be better," he said. "You learn things. You adjust things. You learn more about players. You learn how to handle a ballclub, how to manage a game, how to handle the press. You put things in the bank that you learn, you throw out some of the things that didn't work for you. I think I've gotten better each stop."

"I saw a great difference in him," Hendricks said of the Robinson who arrived back in Baltimore as manager in 1988. "He had gotten to a point where he could even talk to his pitchers. He hated pitchers."

One of Robinson's strengths as a manager was becoming evident: his effectiveness with his players one-on-one. Former Oriole Cal Ripken credits Robinson with helping him to think more clearly about his career while at the same time advising him on a more immediate problem, his hitting struggles.

"When you play for so long, you see it's going to come to an end and you wonder, Is your talent diminishing? Is it a slump?" Ripken said. "He took me aside and told me there was a time in his career when he thought he'd never get another hit. He's certainly one of the better hitting instructors I've ever been around. But psychologically, he started me in the right direction again."

As the Nationals manager, Robinson often roams the clubhouse, purposefully talking with players -- even joking with a pitcher. "When are you going back to work?" he said to Chad Cordero, who hadn't had a save opportunity in a few days because the team had been trailing in the late innings.

Speaking of Cordero during one of his meetings with the media, which he holds before each game, Robinson said: "There's going to be another game tonight, and he's going to close it."

In fact, Cordero did.

Even during the Nationals' toughest times this season, Robinson has demonstrated the kind of optimism and patience that one-time great players have found difficult to summon as managers. Still, he will cast that glare of his, or a perplexed look, from the dugout during games, as if he would love to pick up a bat, dig in at the plate and get the job done himself -- a drawback, to say the least, in being 70.

From his home in Florida, Weaver follows Robinson's fortunes and believes he knows what his former star needs most to reach his goals as a manager: It's a player who fits Weaver's very description of Frank Robinson in his prime. "You always knew about the sixth, seventh or eight inning," Weaver said, "that he was going to hit a two- or three-run homer."