Diversity lacking in the dugout
The last time Major League Baseball had this kind of problem, Al Campanis stepped in front of the cameras and uttered racially insensitive remarks on Jackie Robinson’s anniversary, starting a national firestorm.
Now, 28 years later, we’re right back where we started.
Major League Baseball does not have a single African-American manager, after three more managerial jobs were filled Thursday by white men.
If the Los Angeles Dodgers don’t hire an AfricanAmerican for the only managerial opening remaining, 2016 will be the first time since 1987 that baseball will open the season without a black manager.
And in a game in which some 40% of the players are foreignborn or minorities born in the USA, one of 30 dugout bosses — the Atlanta Braves’ Fredi Gonzalez — will be a person of color.
“We’re in a very dangerous situation,” Dusty Baker, 66, told USA TODAY Sports, “because people don’t really worry about what’s right, what’s wrong or what’s fair.
“I’ve been talking about this minority thing for 40 years, and I hate even talking about it now, because all it is, is talk. Nothing ’s changed. Who’s going to stand up and say anything about it now? Everybody is afraid to stand up knowing it could be costly to your job and family.”
Baker, a three-time National League manager of the year award winner, finished runner-up for the Washington Nationals job, which went to Bud Black. The San Diego Padres turned to Andy Green, and the Miami Marlins agreed to a contract with Don Mattingly. The Dodgers must replace Mattingly, but Gabe Kapler is considered the front-runner.
The disturbing trend is that Baker and Bo Porter have been the only African-Americans to even interview for one of the five managerial openings. Former managers Willie Randolph and Jerry Manuel didn’t get a call. Neither did 13-year veteran Deli-
no DeShields, who has managed for five years in the Cincinnati Reds’ organization. Or Toronto Blue Jays bench coach DeMarlo Hale.
“It just seems like everything ’s about sabermetrics,” Baker says. “And if you don’t agree with 100% of everything being said, then you’re against it. But they don’t agree with everything we see either. We’re more open to what they bring to the table than they are to what we bring to the table.”
Certainly, sabermetrics has put a new wrinkle into the hiring process. General managers are more enriched in analytics than ever, and when it comes time to hire a manager, they’re choosing those with similar philosophies.
Experience no longer matters. The Seattle Mariners hired Scott Servais, who has not managed or coached a day in his career. Kapler has one year of experience, managing in the South Atlantic League in 2007. Green was a two-time manager of the year in the Southern League but has never managed in the big leagues.
These days, it’s about the college education, or you can forget that managerial job.
Since the start of 2012, there have been 16 first-time managers.
Fifteen attended college, many at elite institutions such as Dartmouth, Cal or Stanford. The lone exception: Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg, who spent six years as a minor league manager.
Why does the college connection matter? A study by David Ogden, a University of Nebraska researcher, showed just 2.6% of Division I college players are African-American — far lower than even the 8% black population in the major leagues.
If some college education is — coincidence or not — suddenly a prerequisite to run a big league dugout, that will only further freeze out black candidates.
“If you tell me we’re hiring more college-educated field managers, given the way the game has evolved analytically, and the emergence of sabermetrics,” Commissioner Rob Manfred told USA TODAY Sports, “it would not be a surprise to me there would be a tendency for field managers to have a higher education.
“The way that the game has managed, in a generic sense, is much more quantitative today. GMs are more quantitative, and as a result of those changes, it’s not shocking there may be more college-educated field managers.”
Whatever happened to experience and street smarts? Does this mean that Adrian Beltre’s chances are lessened if he wants to manage since he never went to college? How about Torii Hunter? Bryce Harper?
“What does college degrees have to do with baseball?” said Baker, who attended junior college in California before embarking on a 20-year playing career. “You can’t learn everything in a book. You can get a diploma, but unless you learn life lessons, it doesn’t mean anything.”
Manfred disputes the notion that the lack of a college education would necessarily inhibit the chances of managerial candidates, insisting MLB initiatives will produce viable candidates. He refuses to believe that if Joe Torre and Jim Leyland came along today, they would be shut out in the interview process. John Gibbons never attended college, and it didn’t stop the Blue Jays from hiring him a second time, leading his team within two games of the World Series.
MLB has four minority GMs — Dave Stewart of the Arizona Diamondbacks, Farhan Zaidi of the Dodgers, Al Avila of the Detroit Tigers and Michael Hill of the Miami Marlins. Ken Williams of the Chicago White Sox is the only minority vice president of baseball operations.
Still, no matter how many guidelines MLB imposes, it can’t empower any club to make a hire of its choosing. If clubs want analytical managers with no dugout experience like the Mariners, so be it. If teams want to hire a 30-year-old GM with a political science background from Harvard, as the Milwaukee Brewers did with David Stearns, MLB is powerless to stop them.
It no longer is the old boy’s network, but simply the buddy system.
“The trouble,” Baker said, “is that we don’t have any buddies.”
It’s a whole new world, where a willingness to accept information from the front office means everything.
“The game of baseball is different today,” New York Mets manager Terry Collins said. “(When) I was a minor league director, I tried to run it the way I was brought up, and that was to let the guys manage in the minor leagues. That’s not really done today. They’re kind of dictated what goes on. “It’s all part of the new era.” Only the same old hiring practices, with decision-makers refusing to stray out of their comfort zone.
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