Racism Is Still at Issue in Baseball : Hiring: Of 12 managerial jobs that opened since the start of 1991, only one was filled by a minority. But there are signs of development at lower levels.

Don Baylor interviews for managerial vacancies in Seattle and Milwaukee and accepts a position as the St. Louis Cardinals’ batting coach. The Chicago White Sox consider and pass on Chris Chambliss as a manager, but he is promoted by the Atlanta Braves to manage in Triple-A. Tom Spencer, late of the New York Mets, is hired to coach third base for the Houston Astros. Frank White accepts an appointment to manage the Boston Red Sox’s rookie-league affiliate. Cito Gaston and Hal McRae manage the Toronto Blue Jays and Kansas City Royals, respectively, and Bill White presides over the National League.

Each man is black; each is pushing the frontier of minorities in baseball beyond where it was 4 1/2 years ago when Al Campanis embarrassed himself, the Dodgers and the sport in an infamous television interview. But no one knows precisely where the frontier is right now.

Should these recent developments be perceived as a trickle, a series of drips or the beginning of a genuine and steady flow of minorities into the upper echelons of the game? Is it the beginning of progress? Full-scale progress? Or is it mostly camouflage?

“It’s a start,” Baylor said Friday. “But it’s a long way from rookie ball to the big leagues. Here ... there ... I can’t say encouraging is the word. It’s not significant enough to make a change in the way I felt before (this recent flurry of developments).”

“I’m not sure anything significant has changed,” Commissioner Fay Vincent said Friday afternoon. “I have a sense that what I’ve been saying has been digested and dealt with by the clubs, but it hasn’t had the kind of impact we had hoped.”

Indeed, because of its failure to take advantage of most of the dozens of opportunities that have developed in the past seven months, the game appears as prejudiced as ever.

Twelve managerial jobs have become vacant since the beginning of the 1991 season, and only one was filled by a minority, McRae. The White Sox job remains vacant. Five general managerships changed in the past year. No minorities were appointed.

Even with the recent hiring of Baylor, Spencer and Frank White, major-league baseball stands far from where Vincent and certain prominent minorities believe it should be, particularly in the high-profile positions of manager and general manager. Among the 52 such positions -- 53, including the general managers of the two expansion clubs and excluding the White Sox vacancy -- the Blue Jays’ Gaston and the Royals’ McRae are the only minorities.

Include the Triple-A managers and major-league third base coaches -- two positions generally regarded as spawning grounds for major-league managers -- and minority representation increases by merely three: Spencer, who served as the Mets’ first base coach last season; Chambliss, who managed in Double-A in 1991, and Jerry Manuel of the Montreal Expos.

By contrast, central baseball -- the commissioner’s office and the league offices -- has made advances in filling significant (albeit lower-profile) positions.

But this is not where many people hoped baseball would be after former Commissioner Peter Ueberroth pledged that baseball would lead the way in affmrmative action. That pledge came in the wake of a nationally televised interview in which Dodgers executive Campanis said blacks lacked “the necessities” to hold high-level baseball posts.

“That was the best thing that happened since Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier,” Baltimore Orioles Assistant General Manager Frank Robinson, who became baseball’s first black manager in 1975, said of the effect of the Campanis statement. “What he said embarrassed baseball into moving.”

Movement, but not much. Since the Campanis statements, the tangible progress has been the election or appointment of five minorities to decision-making positions -- Elaine Weddington as Red Sox assistant general manager, Bob Watson as Astros assistant general manager, Robinson, McRae and Gaston.

“It’s better than it was five or 10 years ago, but being better doesn’t make it good,” Henry Aaron said. “It’s definitely better than it was when I played. But it almost looks worse now because of all the change there’s been this year.”

Of the major-league clubs, the Astros, with Watson and Spencer; the Orioles, with Robinson and Don Buford in position to manage the organization’s Double-A team, and the Red Sox, with Weddington and Frank White, appear to have done the most, although the Orioles and Red Sox changed managers since the beginning of last season and neither hired a minority.

The New York clubs have done little in comparison. Each has changed managers twice in the past 18 months. No minority was even considered. The Mets have hired Tom McCraw, who is black, to coach first base and work as hitting instructor. He is their third black coach since 1984. The Yankees have no minority members on their current staff and haven’t had one since 1988, when Chambliss served as batting coach.

Baseball is not alone in its lack of minorities in power. The NBA, with blacks representing an overwhelming majority of its players, has four black head coaches and four black general managers (or executives with different titles but duties generally regarded as those of a general manager) among 54 positions. Art Shell of the Los Angeles Raiders is the only minority head coach in the 28-franchise NFL. There are no black general managers.

But the issue has been prominent in baseball because of the pronouncements of the commissioner, who admits that he has no actual power to bring about change. Instead, he has urged, nudged, cajoled and done whatever a commissioner can do, all the time acknowledging and lamenting his lack of absolute authority.

“I don’t have anything terribly innovative at this point,” Vincent said. “It seems the most effective way to achieve what we want is from the minor leagues and up and in the long term ...

“There is no feeder system. If you go to promote someone and there are no minorities at Triple-A, nothing can change. And we can’t force clubs to hire certain candidates, so our influence is limited to hiring minorities in central baseball and making the clubs aware of the quality work they do.”

No charges of prejudice are directed at any one club or individual. But there are implicit charges of systematic racism when Robinson wonders aloud why minorities appear to be limited to one primary candidate at a time.

“I was the one for a while. Then Baylor. Now it’s Chris Chambliss,” Robinson said. “He’ll get his interviews. There always seems to be one of us who becomes designated as the one. And every club with an opening calls.”

Vincent may have inadvertently reinforced the claim by endorsing Baylor as much as he did. The commissioner wonders and worries that he might have damaged Baylor’s chances by painting Baylor as “Fay’s choice.”

“I don’t buy that,” Baylor said. “I appreciate all the support he’s given me.”

Baylor interviewed last year for the Cardinals job that eventually went to Joe Torre. He was a candidate for the openings with the Mariners and Brewers that last month went to Bill Plummer and Phil Garner, two whites without major-league managing experience. He rejected an offer from the Brewers to be their farm director. “I want to be in uniform,” he said.

The Mariners wanted a manager familiar with the player personnel. Players, including Ken Griffey Jr., who has a strong relationship with Baylor, endorsed Plummer, who had served as a Mariners coach.

The Brewers wanted a new man. Baylor, who never has managed, had coached with the Brewers for two years. Baylor was told he was too passive and, because of his prowess as a player, unapproachable for current players. “In all my years as a player and 42 years as a person, I’d never been told I was too passive,” he said.

Despite his experiences, Baylor makes no charges of prejudice. “I don’t think it ever got into the black-and-white thing,” he said. “I think I’m beyond that. I hope we are.”

Baylor’s status as the one has changed because of Chambliss’ work at Double-A in the Tigers and Braves organizations. His candidacy was reinforced again when he rejected the Yankees’ offer to coach first base.

“You have the right to decline job offers,” Robinson said. “I respect what Chris did. I remember the criticism McRae took when he turned down the Royals job (in 1987). Just because a minority wants to manage doesn’t mean he has to jump at every offer. I think people recognize that now. Maybe this proves we’re gaining some equality.”