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BASEBALL: Du Quoin man running pro team

HARLINGEN, TX - A 1978 graduate of Du Quoin High School, Doug Robinson is now living out the average sports fan's dream - he's running a professional team. While Robinson says his love is emergency room medicine, he also admits to having a great time as the general manager of the Rio Grande Valley White Wings of North American Baseball, an independent league.

"It's an enjoyable and lucrative business because you have the opportunity to do a lot of things and enjoy the sport of baseball because of that," Robinson said.

That being said, Robinson is quick to point out that the job, despite it's obvious appeal, is a very stressful one.

"You're always worried about payroll, you're always worried about the gate, you're worried about making sure that you've got ends to make the means because running a baseball team is very expensive," said Robinson. "It's not an easy thing to do."

"It's a numbers crunch all the time. The game day report I'm working on we had 1,300 people in the stands that night - not a great night for me, we need about twice that much."

Robinson's long road to Harlingen, Texas where the WhiteWings are located may have began when he came out of the Navy and was hired by ABC Sports as a production assistant to cover motorcycle racing at the Du Quoin State Fairgrounds. From there, he attended SIU-Carbondale after learning of their radio-tv department's stellar reputation.

Robinson's list of past employers includes ESPN on Turn Back The Clock and several other collegiate telecasts, and again with ABC in 1985 and 1987 as a production assistant for the World Series.

After suffering a setback when his car was rear-ended by an 18-wheeler in 1990, Robinson raised his family in Houston where he, among other things, worked for the Houston Texans of the National Football League as the area director in charge of ground-level security for Reliant Stadium. He attended a winter meeting for independent baseball in the fall of 2005 where he was hired on the spot by the WhiteWings - then as their director of operations.

Robinson, whose mother Carol Sue Robinson still resides in Du Quoin, left the WhiteWings for the Laredo Broncos - another independent team, where he worked for three seasons before becoming the sports anchor-sports director for the NBC affiliate in Laredo, Texas. Last summer, the WhiteWings contacted him about becoming their general manager.

"I went back to school and was taking two semesters of inorganic chemistry, but I needed to pay the bills, so I came back and took this job in January," Robinson said.

In his first season as GM, Robinson's WhiteWings qualified for the postseason - they were eliminated by Edinburg on Wednesday night and finished 51-44 in the regular season. Robinson says, however, that the performance of the players on the field is far from the only way to get people into the seats.

"The main thing with minor league baseball is that it's family-oriented," said Robinson, "the target is the kids."

"If the kids are having fun, they're going to want to come back out here. For several years the team didn't have that much excitement, didn't have that much fun. We've increased our attendance this year and that's been a benefit for us."

With an MLB-affilliated minor league team, revenue from the MLB team is shared throughout the AAA, AA, A and rookie ball levels. An independent team like the WhiteWings, or the Southern Illinois Miners, does not have that luxury.

"The difference between independent baseball and affiliate baseball is our revenue is driven by our sponsors and by our ticket holders," Robinson said. "The revenue-sharing in the affiliate world tells you 'hey don't worry, you're going to get money from the Cardinals' organization.' In my situation, I don't have that, I have to fight and go after every dollar I can go after."

One way to do that, Robinson says, is to do what the Sugar Land Skeeters of the Atlantic League have done - go after former major leaguers. The Skeeters recently signed former Cy Young Award Winner Roger Clemens, who lives roughly ten minutes from the team's facility.

"There's a push to get retirees from Major League Baseball to come and play for minor league teams, which will essentially help draw crowds and increase revenue," Robinson said.

That's why Robinson has been seeking the services of another famous - or infamous - retired MLB star: Jose Canseco. Canseco became a star after becoming the first player to hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in a major-league season before later writing two books about his steroid use. He even returned and played on the Laredo Broncos a few years ago when Robinson was there.

"The general manager of the Broncos and I are very good friends, and his brother is a graduate from UCLA getting his master's degree in film and wanted to do a documentary on minor league baseball," said Robinson. "Well, they came up with the idea of working with Canseco because they knew he liked to do reality tv. They pitched a reality tv show to him and actually came up with the idea of doing this."

Currently going through a bankruptcy, Canseco is now 48 years old, but Robinson feels he can still contribute to the team, not just as a crowd-drawing name, but as a power threat.

"He's 6'3, he's 245 pounds and he's a bulky guy," said Robinson. "He's a very strong guy. A few years ago with the Broncos, his first at-bat was a walk-off home run, so it couldn't be any more dramatic than that, and he did it in front of about 3,000 fans there in Laredo. When you have something like, and it draws like that, you've got something that is detrimental to the team, but it's an asset to the team is well."

Despite saying he wants to play, Canseco has proven to be an unpredictable man throughout his life. Robinson spent several days last month in negotiations with Canseco and his agent, but the deal didn't get done.

"He is one of those guys where you never know what he's going to do," Robinson said. "It's a situation where he was going to play for me, then he turned around and said 'nope, I'm not playing unless I get a check for this amount of money up front.'

"I think a lot of people think it's going to be a very simple process, and it's actually a lot more convoluted than they ever thought it would be."

Robinson's reputation with Rio Grande Valley has grown exponentially during his first season, according to the team's broadcaster Marky Billson.

"Robinson has been instrumental in expanding promotions of the WhiteWings to this South Texas based community," BIllson said. "Be it meeting with fans individually or manning a microphone during a game, Robinson is one of the most visible general managers in all of professional baseball to his fans."

Be it a crazy promotion like "The Great Human Hamster Race" or "Hit For the Fence", or the team's popular mascot, Robinson's focus with the team and it's direction is clear: make it fun.

"Minor league baseball is not like Major League Baseball," Robinson said, "It's all about the entertainment, it's all about the promotions, and it's all about the fun."