Commentary : White’s Hiring Is Only Baseball’s First Step : Now, More Doors Need to Be Opened for Blacks in Professional Sports

When Peter O’Malley, who headed the selection committee, said race was not a factor, we smiled knowingly.

Clearly, race was the factor.

To concede the point, I guess, would have been an admission of all the other times when race was a negative factor. It’s pretty obvious what happened: For once, the people sitting around the board room had noticed that everyone in it was white and that maybe that was wrong and that surely they could do something about it.

And so, Bill White became president of the National League and the first black to become president of any American sports league.

That’s not the same, of course, as being a commissioner. The president of the National League basically signs the baseballs and occasionally suspends Pete Rose. But if the league presidency is not the seat of real power, it is a symbol of power, and White understood that.

For White, taking the job was a small sacrifice, requiring a cut in pay and a dramatic change in life style. He didn’t seek the position. When he was approached, he wasn’t even sure he wanted it or was qualified for it. And yet, though he enjoyed his life as a sportscaster, White came to see that this was more important, and he would later suggest there’s only so much of your life you can spend saying, “There’s the throw from short, and the runner is out.”

Baseball has been at the center of White’s entire adult life. Early in that life, spring training facilities were still segregated. In certain cities, blacks and whites on the same baseball team were not allowed to stay in the same hotel. It is not so long ago, and White, of course, has not forgotten. And because he hasn’t, he knew he had to take the job.

The three other candidates were black, a striking change from the usual hiring practice when all the candidates are white. I can already see that some will cry reverse racism. Allow me another knowing smile.

In a few days, it will be the 70th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s birth. Robinson was a symbol, too. But those who wish to compare White’s hiring with the long road Robinson traveled are, I fear, over-eager. Robinson, with the help of Brooklyn Dodgers owner Branch Rickey, forced the issue of race upon America. Suddenly, everyone was paying attention, as one man stood alone for a cause. Not only did Robinson give hope to an entire people; he helped open doors, in and out of baseball.

Any civil rights leader would tell you that Robinson’s breaking the color line in baseball was an important component in the movement. Jackie Robinson made history; Bill White is a footnote.

I’m not sure who was the guiding force behind White’s appointment, but I suspect Bart Giamatti, the outgoing National League president who is to assume the commissioner’s chair, played a part. Giamatti, we’re told, will push for the hiring of more blacks to important positions within the baseball community. But, in a sense, White’s hiring only highlights the inability of the commissioner’s office to make a real difference in these matters.

You’d have to be either very naive or closed-minded to suggest that Pete Rozelle and Peter Ueberroth don’t want more--or, in some cases, any--black coaches, managers or general managers, if only because it would make them look like the enlightened leaders they would have us believe they are. That the National Football League has no black coaches and no black general managers is an embarrassment to Rozelle, who will almost concede as much. Ueberroth, of course, would never admit to any failure, but he has been fairly outspoken on the issue, and to almost no effect.

What we have come to learn is that the commissioner cannot order an owner to hire anyone, in what we might call the leading-a-horse-to-water syndrome.

The commissioner can, however, keep the issue in front of us. And the commissioner can push harder. Once, long ago, it was Branch Rickey, whose bold stroke helped paint the world in different colors. Giamatti is an academic who is in love with the game, its history, its every nuance. No one need explain to him how sports can be at the forefront of social change. Perhaps, he sees for himself a small role in that larger, more important game.

Though it’s a sure bet that the owners did not hire Giamatti to be their conscience, somebody has to do it. Bill White has walked through one door. The larger test is whether Giamatti can help force open a few more.