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ApL Princeton WhistlePigs

Where Have You Gone, Jeremy Robinson?

December 18, 2006 - Appalachian League (ApL)
Princeton WhistlePigs News Release


The 1998 Princeton Devil Rays team that advanced all the way to the Appalachian League championship finals got there with a pitching staff deep in quality arms that kept the P-Rays in every contest. Despite having three players on that team (Brandon Backe, Joe Kennedy, and Jason Standridge)that would later earn their living pitching from major league mounds, the team's early march to the playoffs was spearheaded by left-handed pitcher Jeremy Robinson, who still remains the only pitcher in Princeton franchise history to be named as "Appalachian League Pitcher of the Year" for a season. Robinson, now retired from baseball and living in his native St. Amant, LA, still carries a lot of great memories with him about the 1998 Princeton squad.

"Of all the teams I played with in professional ball, the '98 team was the tightest knit team I was on. Everybody got along well, pulled for each other, and we were very competitive," recalled Robinson in a December 17 telephone interview.

Robinson was among the first of a large wave of Louisiana players that have played for Princeton during the 11-year tenure of a being a Devil Rays affiliate. He came from a high school that had produced current Milwaukee Brewers pitching star Ben Sheets before him and former 2004 P-Ray shortstop, and current rapidly-rising TB standout, Reid Brignac after him. His outstanding high school experience, combined with several years of college ball, had him primed for an explosive takeoff when he finally did toe the mounds of the Appalachian League. Robinson mowed through the competition early in the season and had six wins notched in his belt before the league knew what had hit them.

"I was really fortunate that I had good pitching coaches in both high school and college previously. They called a lot of pitches for me early on until the lessons I learned took hold and I really knew how to set up hitters," confided Robinson, who added in that point of his career he was almost solely a fastball pitcher who used everything else (other pitches) only for show to set up the fastball.

These lessons proved to be a big help in helping Robinson craft a 6-2 record for the '98 P-Rays to go along with a league top-ten earned run average of 3.01 in 13 starting assignments.

Unfortunately, being the workhorse of the 1998 staff brought with it an ulnar nerve injury in his pitching arm that forced Robinson to the sidelines for the balance of the season before the 1998 playoffs arrived for the P-Rays. Robinson confided that the injury had progressed to the point that his fastball, which had brought all his success that summer to date, was only in the 77-78 (mph) range during his last regular season start of 1998. All of this misfortune arrived just after being named to the league all-star team and winning "Pitcher of the Year" honors and also just before the P-Rays were to meet the powerful Bristol White Sox in the title series.

"it just killed me to have to sit and watch that series without being able to help. My high school teams won the state championship three of my four years there and I really wanted to be a part of things but it just wasn't to be," said Robinson of the series in which the P-Rays were swept.

The 1998 P-Rays squad had five players that would go on to play in the big leagues: Brandon Backe, Humberto Cota, Joe Kennedy, Pete Laforest, and Jason Standridge. When asked if there were others off that team he thought would play in the majors, Robinson quickly reeled off the names of second baseman Derek Mann, and pitchers Talley Haines and James Lira, who also was a league all-star in 1998 and led the Appy League in saves that season. Of those, perhaps at that time, the longest stretch would be that of Backe, who went from a light-hitting utility outfielder for the '98 P-Rays to a star pitcher who started Game Four of the 2005 World Series for the Houston Astros.

"It really didn't surprise me about Brandon Backe. He has always been one of those guys that if you told him he could not do something, he would find a way to do it. I can still remember being in St. Petersburg (former TB affiliate, the Class-A St.Petersburg Devil Rays) when he told us they were going to make him a pitcher," commented Robinson.

Robinson rebounded to pitch in the Tampa Bay organization for 2 1/2 more seasons in Charleston (SC), St. Petersburg, and Bakersfield before being released. He then played independent ball with the Baton Rouge Blue Marlins before hanging it up for good. He described his fastball as being back in the 93-94 (mph) range when he retired.

Today, he is married to wife Christen and they have two children, Jonathan (3 1/2) and Jenna (2). He now works alongside his brother as an auto mechanic in a business owned by his father. But for fans here though, he will always be remembered for the season of 1998 when, with the intricate precision of a mechanic, he shut down the bats of opposing hitters and took the P-Rays almost to the doorstep of their second league title in franchise history.

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