Back in the game

The State College Spikes, New York-Penn League affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates, have a new manager and he has been out of the game for awhile.

Gary Robinson is a baseball man to the core. He’s been a player, a coach, a scout and even an umpire.

But as a high school administrator in North Carolina the last decade, his run-ins with the game were too few and far between.

That’s why the 56-year-old baseball lifer is returning to baseball as manager of the State College Spikes, the parent club Pittsburgh Pirates announced on Friday.

“Believe me when I tell you — and I’m not being facetious — that there’s not a happier guy on the face of the earth right now,” Robinson said by phone Friday. “I am so excited about being in State College. I can’t think of a place I’d rather be or an organization I would rather be with, knowing where we’re going. I feel very strongly that we’re going in the right direction.”

Robinson’s last on-field position in professional baseball came in 1998, when he served as pitching coach for the rookie- level Gulf Coast League Expos under manager Frank Kremblas, who will be the Pirates’ Triple-A manager at Indianapolis in 2009. From 1991-97, Robinson worked as a scout for the San Francisco Giants, Seattle Mariners and Philadelphia Phillies.

That umpire thing is what caught my eye.

Robinson has been a college assistant at Appalachian State (1975-77) and Tennessee (1978-79) and later served as the head coach at North Carolina- Charlotte, where he compiled a 280-244-3 record from 1982-1991. Prior to that, he was a minor league umpire for three years in the Midwest and Southern leagues.

His pitching coach will be someone else with some Midwest League experience.

[Michael] Steele, 30, was the pitching coach for the Pirates’ Advanced-A team in Lynchburg last season and pitched for the Seattle Mariners and Detroit Tigers organizations from 2000-2005.

Steele played for West Michigan in 2001. He was not a Rattler as he pitched for Inland Empire and the AZL M's in the Mariner system.

The hitting coach for the Spikes also has Midwest League ties.

[Brandon] Moore, 35, served as hitting coach for the Altoona Curve for the last three seasons (2006-08), in addition to spending 11 seasons in the Chicago White Sox chain as a player and coach.

Moore's one year in the Midwest League was with South Bend in 1995.