Robinson makes minor league roster year after losing eye
Less than 13 months after losing his right eye in a suicide attempt, Giants minor leaguer Drew Robinson will begin the 2021 season with the Triple-A Sacramento River Cats and spend Opening Day in his hometown of Las Vegas.
Robinson, 29, first joined the Giants organization on a minor league deal that included an invitation to major league spring training in 2020. A left-handed-hitting utility player, Robinson was poised to begin last year’s season at Triple-A before the coronavirus pandemic put baseball on hold.
On April 16, Robinson, who had spent a month alone in his Las Vegas home, shot himself in the head and waited 20 hours before dialing 9-1-1. The gunshot left Robinson without a right eye (he now wears a prosthetic one), fractured his frontal sinus and left an exit wound above his left cheekbone, but the bullet’s path prevented more damage and allowed Robinson to find a new beginning.
Robinson detailed his story in February after the Giants had agreed to sign him to a new minor league contract with the belief he could continue his baseball career in the organization.
According to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, no major league player with one eye has appeared in a game since Whammy Davis threw 47 innings for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1957, but Robinson will now have a chance to return to the sport’s highest level.
In a post he shared on Twitter on Wednesday, Robinson said, “My first games back, after everything that’s happened, are at home in front of all the people that got me through my incident and this last year as a whole? It feels like I’m living out a movie.”
The Triple-A Sacramento River Cats begin their season against the Las Vegas Aviators, the A’s Triple-A affiliate, tonight.
“Here I am, getting ready to play another professional season with an astronomical amount of meaning attached to it,” Robinson wrote. “This is so much bigger than me. I’m excited, nervous, empowered, and more importantly, ready for a magical experience.”
Robinson had spent the previous month working out alongside fellow minor leaguers at the Giants’ facility in Arizona before receiving his Opening Day assignment.
“I’m super proud of the perseverance, the drive and the determination,” Giants manager Gabe Kapler said Wednesday. “He’s shared some videos with me and I’ve seen some videos of my own, some really loud and hard contact, he continues to be a guy who can move around the diamond and play the infield and the outfield at a high level so I’m really excited for him, happy for him and always here to support Drew.”