You Can Always Learn

So Baltimore Orioles prospect Josh Hart met Frank Robinson the other day, but didn't know who he was.

Since Robinson is an Oriole legend (and no small shakes in baseball as a whole), Orioles manager Buck Showalter gave the 19-year-old Hart an assignment: A one-page report on who Frank Robinson was and what he had done.

Hart completed the report, and learned a great deal about someone important to his team (two World Series wins), to baseball (only man ever to win MVP titles in both leagues) and to what was possible for Hart himself as an African-American ballplayer (first African-American man hired to manage a major league ballclub).

Now Mr. Hart knows something he didn't know. And by watching the way the young man handled the assignment, Mr. Showalter knows something about him, too, that he probably couldn't have learned on the diamond.