Baseball COLOR IT UNCHANGED : ...

Baseball’s winter meetings don’t have much color. The halls of power, for the most part, remain basic white.

“The last couple of years, baseball has gone back to business as usual,” said Frank Robinson, who wasn’t referring to trade talks or free-agent signings.

It is the view of Robinson and others in baseball that their sport has abandoned the minority hiring movement that followed an appearance by then-Dodger vice president Al Campanis on the television show, “Nightline,” in April of 1987.

Helping to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s breaking of baseball’s color barrier, Campanis lost his job and stimulated an affirmative action drive when he said blacks lacked the “necessities” to manage in the major leagues.

Now, more than 4 1/2 years later, minority employment is up significantly in baseball, but it has remained static at the high-profile, decision-making levels of field manager, general manager and other key front-office positions.

Bias? Prejudice? Racism? Frank Robinson, who broke the managerial color barrier at Cleveland in 1974, later managed in San Francisco and Baltimore and is now an assistant general manager with the Orioles, refused to employ the harshest of characterizations but said: “If you ask why is it the way it is in baseball, you have to ask why is it the way it is in society?

“You can’t force it or fight it when there’s no pressure for change. Some clubs have been aggressive, but baseball is generally dragging its feet again. It’s as if some owners said, ‘Let’s weather this storm (that followed Campanis’ comments) and we can go back to the way it has always been.’ They have their nice little circle in which they feel very comfortable.”

Said Reggie Smith, who felt the stings of racist fans while playing in Boston and is now a respected batting instructor in the Dodgers’ farm system: “The only time something significant is done is when there is enough noise made, and that, in effect, suggests bias. I said at the time (of the Campanis incident) that I was concerned it would all die down and go back to the way it was, and that’s what has happened.

“I’ve found my own niche and am very happy teaching at the minor league level, but I’ve reduced the number of excuses and explanations down to the point that I feel others haven’t been hired just because they are black. I don’t know what else to believe.”

A string of 1991 hirings brought the issue sharply into focus again.

There have been fourteen managerial openings among 13 clubs--the Cubs changed managers twice--since last Jan. 1. Only one minority member was hired: Hal McRae by the Kansas City Royals.

A total of 46 managerial jobs have changed hands since that “Nightline” program was shown. Only four other minority members have been hired in that span--Cito Gaston by the Toronto Blue Jays, Nick Leyva by the Philadelphia Phillies, Cookie Rojas by the Angels and Frank Robinson by the Orioles--and only two remain at those positions, Gaston and McRae.

In addition, there have been eight general managers hired this year, and there is still no minority member among the 28 in the major leagues, including those with the two expansion franchises.

There is only one minority member serving as a scouting or farm director, Reggie Waller of the San Diego Padres.

Said Henry Aaron, a vice president of the Atlanta Braves: “It’s better than it was five or 10 years ago, and certainly better than it was when I played, but being better doesn’t make it good. In fact, it almost looks worse because of all the changes this year (and the fact that virtually no minority members were hired to fill them).”

Aaron is largely considered a figurehead with the Braves.

There are only three black assistant general managers with decision-making input--Robinson with the Orioles, Bob Watson with the Houston Astros and Elaine Weddington, an attorney specializing in contract issues, with the Boston Red Sox.

Bill White is president of the National League, the only black in any major sport to preside over a league, but White has been an anonymous leader, barely visible or reachable for the most part. He did not respond to interview requests for this story.

White recently criticized the Denver and Miami expansion clubs for failing to hire more minority members, but that comment seemed premature because both are still hiring at all levels.

The Miami franchise, in particular, has demonstrated recognition of its Latino environment in hirings for the field and in the front office. Thus far, five of the nine people hired for minor league managing and coaching positions with the club are Latino. Rojas, the former Angel manager, has been hired to work with General Manager David Dombrowski as a special-assignment scout. Angel Vazquez will supervise the Latin American scouting department.

“We’re not hiring just to appease someone, but if the person we hire is Latino, that’s a plus,” Dombrowski said. “We’re certainly aware of our area and the fact that a large portion of our crowds are likely to be Hispanic.”

Said Reggie Smith: “It would be a mistake to start hiring on the basis of quota, to hire just any minority, any black. The person has to be qualified or it hurts the case by perpetuating the myth that blacks can’t teach, aren’t qualified, don’t have the ‘necessities.’ ”

A corresponding myth, said Smith, Robinson and others, is the contention by management that minorities, meaning blacks primarily, are unwilling to stay in the game and move up the ladder at lower salaries, starting as front-office assistants or minor league managers who earn salaries of about $20,000 in Class A and $40,000 in triple A.

“It takes an uncommon individual, minority or otherwise, to pursue it, to go back to riding buses and living in freeway motels,” Dombrowski said.

Said Joe McIlvaine, general manager of the Padres: “The biggest problem we have in the developmental area is getting people to go back to the minor leagues because of the salary differential. Everyone wants to stay and coach in the majors because of the living and travel conditions, the pension and the licensing money.

“I believe there’s a real fallacy in that thinking, because until you’ve been on the firing line as a manager, until you’re the one having to push the buttons, you don’t know what it’s really like. I put a lot of emphasis on managerial experience, on working your way up.

“I mean, guys like Joe Torre and Jim Fregosi have become fine managers, but I don’t think they were ready when they got their first jobs (without having minor league experience).”

Said Watson, the Astros’ assistant general manager: “All of that is fine if the criteria was consistent, but it’s not. I don’t say there’s an anti-minority bias, but I do think there’s a double standard. Why should Don Baylor be told he needs minor league experience when Phil Garner doesn’t? Did Joe Torre manage in the minors? Did Art Howe of our club?

“I admit that when you look at the major league rosters, most minorities are stars or starters, and it’s tough for them to give up the fame and money and go back to the minors, but why should they when the criteria isn’t the same for everyone?”

Said Robinson: “The problem when people start talking about the unwillingness of minority candidates to go back to the minors is that they’re talking about the high-profile person and not the .260 hitter who got his hands dirty, the type of guy most inclined to want to stay around and make a career of it.

“Those guys aren’t even being asked, in many cases, and have found it useless to ask, themselves. In the meantime, how many non-minority superstars do you see going back to manage in the minors? Any?”

Of the 14 managers hired this year, 10 never managed in the majors. Of the 10, only McRae and Garner, the Milwaukee Brewers’ new manager, never managed in the minors, although McRae spent two years as a minor league batting instructor with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Seven of the current 26 major league managers never managed in the minors, including both blacks, McRae and Gaston, along with Garner, Torre, Howe, Jeff Torborg and Lou Piniella.

It is generally believed that the two leading black managerial candidates are Baylor and Chris Chambliss.

Chambliss is the only black manager at the triple-A level and rejected a recent offer to become first base coach of the New York Yankees because he considered it a token position and thought his chances of advancing to a major league managing job were better if he remained at Atlanta’s top farm affiliate.

Baylor, having spent two years as the Brewers’ batting instructor, interviewed for Milwaukee’s managerial vacancy, as well as Seattle’s. He said he got a fair interview from the Mariners, but thought the Brewers went through it simply as if it were an obligation.

“I don’t want to make minority an issue in my case,” said Baylor, who recently was hired as the St. Louis Cardinals’ batting instructor. “I don’t think it’s black-white. I think I’m beyond that and I hope we are.

“I mean, all I want is to be treated fairly, given the same consideration as everyone else. I’ve told people I’m willing to manage in winter ball, but I don’t think experience should be held up to me as an issue, as the Brewers did; then they turn around and hire Phil Garner.

“I played 18 years in the big leagues for guys like Earl Weaver, Gene Mauch, Jim Fregosi and Tony La Russa. The last five or six years, everyone seemed to want me on their team because of my leadership ability, but the Brewers told me they were concerned that the players would be too much in awe of me. Really, give me a break.”

There has never been much sanity to the process of hiring and firing managers. Buck Showalter, the Yankees’ new manager, was fired as a coach by that club only a few weeks earlier.

And Jim Lefebvre, now managing the Chicago Cubs, was fired as the Mariners’ manager after leading that club to its first .500-or-better finish and, in his three years, setting a Seattle managerial record for victories.

At least, in the 1991 managerial hirings, there was not the usual high incidence of recycling, but the absence of minority members among the fresh faces--”that’s the new catch phrase,” Robinson said--was troublesome to Commissioner Fay Vincent and to Clifford Alexander, whose corporate consulting firm, Alexander & Associates, based in Washington, was hired by baseball after the Campanis incident to help stimulate minority hiring.

Alexander said: “The teams didn’t do what we hoped they’d do in the recent spate of hirings. Am I disappointed? Everyone should be, but that failure shouldn’t entirely detract from what has been an impressive story. I mean, to have only two minority managers among the 26 is mediocre at best, but minority employment in the front offices has increased 7 1/2 times since 1987, and that’s remarkable.

“One out of every four people in the commissioner’s office is a minority. The progress has been significant, which is not to whitewash the singular lack of success at the managing, general managing and department head levels.”

Is prejudice at the core of that lack of success?

“If baseball is an extension of society, it certainly still exists,” Alexander said. “I think you would agree that if David Duke can get 55% of the white vote (as a candidate for governor of Louisiana), there’s a problem throughout society. And it’s important, of course, that we’re concerned about it, but it’s not up to us to psychoanalyze. We have to try to continue to bring about change, to meet with the clubs and point out the need for it and to help them achieve it. Has there been significant progress? Definitely. Is there room for improvement? Yes.”

Vincent will talk about the progress and need for improvement during his state-of-the-game speech here Monday. He has been a consistent advocate of minority hiring and takes pride in the statistical gains, having recently contributed to them again by hiring a minority as baseball’s director of marketing and another as director of minor league relations.

But he said of the lack of progress at decision-making positions: “I’m not sure anything has changed. 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.”

Vincent said baseball is haunted by the barriers of the past, and that much of that still needs to wash through the system. He said he has nothing innovative to offer except to use the hiring policies of the central office as an example and to continue to preach for a buildup in the pool of minority candidates and the use of the minor leagues as a feeder system.

Vincent also has his office working on what may be a byproduct of the absence of minorities in high-profile roles. Several recent surveys show that fewer black athletes are entering professional baseball, compared to professional football and basketball, the perception being that baseball has become a sport for white players and fans.

The commissioner’s office, in response, has given support to a youth program for inner cities, under the direction of scout John Young, and, according to Deputy Commissioner Steve Greenberg, is searching for ways to improve relations with the NCAA.

Said Greenberg: “We’re looking for long-term solutions. We’re treating this as a serious concern.”

It may be that, but Alexander said of the hiring issue: “There are an ample number of minorities willing to pay their dues, as there are whites, but they aren’t being asked. People who say otherwise are advancing another myth. I have to point that out to the clubs occasionally and point out to minorities that they have to make the clubs aware of their availability and goals.”

Watson agreed that there has been apathy on both sides but that “minorities will get a better shake” only when the system changes.