BLACKS IN MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL MANAGEMENT: ABSENCE OR MALICE? : Joe Morgan Says Blacks Don’t Have a Chance for Top Jobs

Joe Morgan, a former All-Star second baseman, said Wednesday that he gave up a possible managerial career because he figured that being black would prevent him from moving up in a team’s organization.

Morgan was reacting to a recent charge by former Dodger Vice President Al Campanis that blacks “may not have the necessities to be . . . a field manager or a general manager.” But Morgan must have had the proper necessities because the Houston Astros twice offered him their managing job, before the 1984 and 1986 seasons.

He turned them down, he said, partly because he didn’t want to be a token black manager and partly because he wanted to have some say in the team’s personnel moves, which the Astros weren’t prepared to offer him at the time.

Morgan said the Astro president, John McMullen, did not discriminate against him because he was black. But he said he knew other teams would.

Morgan’s goal all along was to work in some baseball front office, but he figured he’d better give it up and start his own office. He now owns three Wendy’s restaurants in Oakland and is part owner of several travel agencies.

“Maybe I made a mistake (in turning down the Astro job),” he said. “But there are things you look at when you grow up in this country. You say, ‘I want to grow up and be the best at whatever I do. Want to work to be the best.’

“But the problem with blacks in baseball is that they can only work to be first base coaches and batting coaches, no matter how hard they work, no matter how much they know the game. They don’t have a chance to be third base coaches nor managers, nor general managers . . . And that’s what blacks want, an opportunity to go to the top.

“So that’s why I didn’t take a job as a manager, because that meant that’s all I could be. And no matter how good a manager I would’ve been, that’s where I would’ve ended up.”

Morgan added: “If you take the 26 managers--who are all white--and give them an IQ test, how many Einsteins you think you’re gonna find there? There’s been a long-standing situation in major league baseball that in order for a black person to run a team or manage a team, he has to have a degree in mathematics, a degree in psychology, and he has to be a pure genius. That’s the thinking that they have.

“Right now, you’re looking at 26 major league teams, and there’s not one black manager there, and you’re gonna tell me there isn’t any prejudice or collusion or whatever you want to call it?”

Morgan--who played with the Astros, Reds, Giants and A’s--said he can’t understand why former Pirate Willie Stargell isn’t a manager.

“If there were ever a guy with the mentality and the personality to be a good manager and then a good general manager, Willie’s the guy,” Morgan said.