Trayvon Robinson: A Gambling Man
Look around at all the compelling stories in the Indians clubhouse. There's the player, for example, who once dove to the floor in terror, as bullets from a drive-by shooter zinged through his home.
Look around at all the compelling stories in the Indians clubhouse. There's the player, for example, who once dove to the floor in terror, as bullets from a drive-by shooter zinged through his home.
Or the player whose first night in the big leagues landed him on SportsCenter's Top 10.
Or the player who zapped his bank account to pay his own way to spring training; an all-in gamble to revive a career.
Wait a second. That's all the same player.
This has been the spring of second chances for
"Most of these guys in here, they probably didn't see the things I've seen," he said. "They probably haven't been through the stuff I've gone through."
After growing up in Los Angeles gangland, he was drafted, traded, promoted, demoted, driven by shiny dreams and shaken by shattered illusions. It's all there in his long journey to Victory Field.
A year ago, he was a Lancaster Barnstormer, trying to pay the bills in an independent league, looking for any door left ajar in organized baseball. Three months ago, he was in the Pirates training camp, having taken a no-expenses-paid trip of last resort to Florida, to show someone - anyone - he could still play. Before it was too late.
"I told them, 'You don't have to give me nothing. Just a jersey, that's all I ask for,'" he said. "I stayed true to my word. I paid my own hotel room. That was about three grand. I just showed up ready to go."
And now, he's in Triple-A, on the doorstep of the big leagues, light years from Lancaster, at last check hitting .318 (34-for-107) through his first 39 games. A career reborn a minute before midnight.
"I grew up in the 'hood, had to survive to get out of there. I feel like I'm a survivor," he said. And that included a road that had faded into the dim flicker of independent ball. "I felt like I worked too hard my whole career, not to give up like that."
Such purpose came early. He was only three when his single mother on welfare brought home a tee with a ball on a string, hoping to get her sons interested in something that would keep them off the streets.
"She didn't want us to have down time, standing on the corner. I played basketball but I'm not good at basketball at all, so it was baseball and football for me. I'd hit the ball off the tee for a couple of years."
Turns out he was good at baseball, with Juan Gonzalez as his hero. He has a Gonzalez action figure in his Victory Field locker even now. Baseball in the driveway and his idols on television -- if only growing up had been that simple.
He was a teenager the day the shots rang out, as they often do in south central Los Angeles.
"We were watching the Carolina Panthers play, just a regular Sunday. Shots went off, a couple of bullets went through the house, we were all on the ground. It was scary because all the cops came and checked the house."
Such was everyday life in his neighborhood.
"Anything could happen, a stray bullet, somebody who's trying to get their reputation from older gang members. Me and my best friend got jumped two weeks before the draft. We were walking down the streets, and six grown men beat us up. Well, they tried to beat us up. I hit one of them."
Baseball was the way out. Robinson grew up 25 minutes from Dodger Stadium, and when the Dodgers drafted him in the 10th round out of Crenshaw High School in 2005, he literally screamed with joy.
"Everything seemed possible. Dodger Stadium, the World Series. Everything I'd dreamed of."
But life in baseball has a way of throwing a guy curves - and not just when he's hitting.
"Always," Robinson sighed.
He had worked his way through the Dodgers system to Triple-A Albuquerque and was on a road trip to New Orleans in 2011 when he got the news. He was being traded to the Seattle organization.
"I thought, there's no way this is happening right now. LA kid, worked my ass off, thinking I'd be playing one day in front of my friends. There was nothing I could do.
"That kind of hurt me. Actually, I still can't get over it. It was instant sadness. But three days later, I was in the big leagues."
He had been in a handful of games for Tacoma, Seattle's Triple-A affiliate, when manager Daren Brown called Robinson to his office - "I was thinking, what'd I do now?'" - and told him he'd be going to Los Angeles.
"We're going to play in LA?" Robinson asked.
No, the Mariners had called for him, and they were in Anaheim.
"Everything was running through my head. My little brother was the first one on my recent call list, so I hit the number and he started screaming on the phone. I had to hang up because he was too loud.
"No matter where you start, it's where you finish. I felt like I was guided. Those bullets that went through my house missed me on purpose. That's all I could think about, me growing up and making it."
Aug. 5, 2011. His mother and brothers were in the Anaheim stands; Trayvon Robinson was in left field for Seattle.
First inning, the Angels' Vernon Wells lined to left, and Robinson caught it. "I was like, 'Whew, it's still the same game.' Then I had my first at-bat and I see that sinker from (Jered) Weaver and no, this is not the same game. I didn't see that in Triple-A."
Robinson struck out to end the Mariners' third inning, then jogged back to left. With two outs in the Angels' third, Torii Hunter sent a deep drive to the left field corner, headed for the seats.
"We had a big shift on him, I was in left center. I was just running and I thought 'I'm getting close to this, I'm going to just jump for it…oh, it hit my glove.' Then I rolled around and I thought there's no way I caught the ball. I was still in shock. My whole body was numb. The first thing I thought was, where's my hat? If you see the video, you can see me searching for my hat."
It had fallen into the first row as Robinson leaped for the catch. A fan handed it back.
"When I went by Torii Hunter, he looked like he was seven feet tall."
The next night, Robinson homered. What a start. How was he to know it would end so soon? He played in 44 Mariners games that season, 46 the next, and then was sent back to the minors for a long, steady descent. His moment had come and gone, and he was only 25.
"There were days I cried. It seemed like after that first month in the big leagues, everything went downhill. It felt like I wasn't wanted.
"How do I go from one of the top prospects on the Dodgers to…nothing?"
There would be aborted attempts in the Baltimore organization, the Dodgers again, San Diego, Arizona, Detroit. No, no, no, no. The years sped past.
By 2015, all that was left was independent ball, and the winter leagues. The thing was, Robinson felt like he still could hit. And when he ended up in Lancaster in 2016, something very good happened.
"I had fun again. We laughed every day. We had a good time. Sometimes, some guys in Triple-A locker rooms, they don't have the same common goal. In independent ball, a lot of those guys are great guys and they share the same common goal. They're always trying to get back. We're in a bucket trying to get out."
He also started dabbling in real estate, buying and renovating old homes and turning them around. It meant a few more bucks.
But baseball still had a grip on him. He could go to Mexico, or maybe have the last sands of his baseball life run out in independent play. Give up the dream in obscurity. But one voice he heard was of the woman who brought home that tee so long ago.
"My mom's a single mom. It wouldn't be fair to her, what she's been though, for me to give up like that."
He got himself invited to a February workout with the Pirates in Florida. "I think I was down there for four or five days, and I just did what I do. What I've been doing for the last five years. Just hit, hit, hit." Then he returned home, hoping to be called back for spring training. He never heard, so he contacted the Pirates with his offer. Just give him a chance and a jersey, he'd pay for the rest.
"I walked in and everybody was 23 or 24. That put more pressure on me, being the oldest guy in there. But I felt like I could move just as good as them.
"What I'm so happy about is that nothing got in my way."
One day, someone dropped by to watch him hit. Indianapolis manager Brian Esposito, who once upon a time had played against Robinson.
"I was interested to see what he was going to look like when he was all grown up and a little bit older," Esposito said. "Speed is a little bit slower than what he used to be, but the grind is still there, the personality is still there, the want-to is still there."
And the hitting. One day late in camp, Esposito called Robinson over for a word -- he'd be playing with the Indianapolis Indians.
"Inside I was crying," Robinson said. "Outside I was like, I have work to do."
Esposito has seen players such as Robinson. They're special, maybe not in major league stardom, but pure and simple devotion to stay in the game.
"I give those guys a lot of credit, in that they refuse to have somebody take the jersey from them. They want to do it on their terms. He'll know when the time is right, and now is not that time."
No, this is springtime again for Trayvon Robinson, who is here not only to play, but to mentor. Someone with his mileage must be a useful example in Triple-A, where the majority population is composed of young men in a hurry.
"You might have some of the entitlement that floats through a clubhouse in Triple-A." Esposito said, "where you've got a young guy that's on the rise and not quite there yet but thinks he's already there. Or the guy that's been struggling.
"And then you take a look across the room and see a guy that's been there, done that, was out and now is back in, and continues to grind and continues to work and the realization is…are you even coming close to matching his work ethic and his desire?"
Such a role is something Robinson cherishes.
"I struggled in Triple-A, I struggled in Double-A, I struggled in the big leagues, struggled in winter. I did everything that those guys are probably going through. All I want to do is lead by example. For me not to lead by example and give back, my career would be wasted."
So now batting for the Indians is the man who has dodged bullets, endured disappointment, ignored the odds, and won a job on his own dime. The man who won't take no for an answer, at least until time says he must.
"As long as I've got a jersey on my back, I think I'm fortunate."