Ueberroth Has Meeting With Winfield, Baylor : Players Reportedly Give Commissioner List of Minority Managerial Candidates

Dave Winfield of the New York Yankees and Don Baylor of the Boston Red Sox submitted a list of minority managerial candidates during a meeting Friday with Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth, according to a published report.

“He needs something from active players, something aside from (Rev.) Jesse Jackson and (Dr.) Harry Edwards,” Baylor was quoted as saying in today’s editions of the Westchester Rockland Newspapers.

Jackson has criticized major league baseball for its lack of minority employees in front office positions. Edwards, a sociology professor at Berkeley, was named two weeks ago by Ueberroth as a special assistant to the commissioner.

Baylor said he and Winfield gave Ueberroth “six or seven names--Al Bumbry, Cookie Rojas, Dave Nelson--to back up the Joe Morgans who say, ‘I’m not interested.’ ”

Morgan has previously rejected an offer to manage the Houston Astros, for whom he once played.

The involvement of Winfield and Baylor marked the first step taken by players.

Ueberroth, in a prepared statement, described Friday’s 1 1/2-hour meeting as “productive.”

“It’s clear Dave and Don share our concerns about fair employment in baseball,” Ueberroth was quoted as saying. “They are two of the game’s true leaders, the type of men who will work toward a solution. I think they appreciate the steps baseball has taken and the direction in which we are moving.”

Both Baylor and Winfield said they were encouraged by what Ueberroth told them.

“He’s put the mechanism in place, the organization in place, to analyze each team,” Baylor said. “This isn’t going to be a force-fed situation.”

Ueberroth informed the players that a firm in Washington is studying the organization of the 26 major league teams.

Ueberroth raised the issue of minority hiring practices as part of baseball’s observance of the 40th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s breaking the color barrier with his entry into the major leagues in 1947.