Controversial Ex-Dodger Exec Campanis Dies

Al Campanis, the longtime Dodger player, scout and executive who helped prepare Jackie Robinson to break major league baseball’s color barrier, but who was fired for making racially insensitive remarks on national television, died Sunday at his Fullerton home. He was 81.

Campanis, who spent 44 years with the Dodgers before his dismissal as vice president of player personnel in 1987, had been in failing health in recent years and died of coronary artery disease, according to Rick McAnally, Orange County deputy coroner.

Former Dodger owner Peter O’Malley fired Campanis shortly after he had appeared on ABC’s “Nightline” and said African Americans “may not have some of the necessities” to be a major league manager or general manager. But O’Malley said Sunday that Campanis should be remembered for “so much more in a distinguished career.”

“Never before and never since have I believed that Al was a racist,” O’Malley said. “The record is there, going back to when he worked with Jackie Robinson on learning to make the double play, to his scouting in Latin America and to the signing of dozens of players of differing cultures. He was an extraordinary judge of talent and great teacher of the game.”

George Campanis, one of two sons, said Sunday: “Dad didn’t care if a player had green hair and a purple face if he could hit the ball or pitch it. Everyone who knew him knew he didn’t have a prejudiced bone in his body. It was not like he had been hiding anything. He just misused some words.”

An Accomplished Career

The “Nightline” appearance, however, tended to overshadow a career in which Campanis:

* Scouted and signed Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax and outfielder Roberto Clemente.

* Moved Bill Russell (the current Dodger manager) and Davey Lopes from the outfield to the infield, where they joined Steve Garvey and Ron Cey in a group that played together for a record 11 years and helped win a World Series.

* Provided the ladder that Tom Lasorda climbed from scout to minor league manager to major league coach and manager to the Hall of Fame.

* Championed the development of scouting and instruction in the Dominican Republic, a baseball hotbed, and employed more African American players in the 1960s and 1970s than any major league team.

* Saw the Dodgers reach the World Series eight times in the nearly 30 years that he served as scouting director or general manager.

The “Nightline” interview was part of a commemoration of Robinson’s first year in major league baseball. It was taped with Campanis sitting on a stool at home plate in the darkened Houston Astrodome.

Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. Then-owner Branch Rickey had assigned Campanis, a young shortstop and an off-season scout, to join the Dodgers’ Triple-A farm club in Montreal in 1946 and help refine Robinson’s skills at second base.

On the “Nightline” interview, host Ted Koppel asked Campanis why there were no black managers in the major leagues.

“You have to pay your dues,” Campanis said. “You generally have to go to the minor leagues. And the pay there is low.”

To which Koppel asked: “Is there still that much prejudice?”

Campanis answered: “No. It’s just that they may not have some of the necessities to be a field manager or general manager. I don’t know. How many quarterbacks are there? How many pitchers?”

Koppel said many of those statements sounded like excuses people had been hearing for 40 years.

Earlier in the program, Campanis had painted a stereotypical portrait of blacks as gifted athletes and raised the question:

“Why aren’t blacks good swimmers? They don’t have buoyancy.”

At first, O’Malley said he did not plan to fire Campanis. Amid pressure from civic leaders and civil rights groups, O’Malley subsequently asked for Campanis’ resignation, saying his comments “were so far removed . . . from what I believe and the organization believes that it was impossible for Al to continue.”

“I told Al that I didn’t have any alternative, and he understood,” O’Malley said Sunday. “Whether he meant what he said or meant something else, the words were there.”

Campanis issued an apology and said in subsequent interviews that what he meant to say was that blacks may lack the experience to become major league managers and the desire to go to the minors to attain it. He said his record as a scout and executive showed he was anything but racist. He also explained he was disoriented by the eerie conditions in the Astrodome at the end of a long day.

Friends rallied to his support. Maury Wills, a black player and once a standout Dodger shortstop, came to the Campanis household and answered the phone by saying, “This is Maury Wills, a friend of Al Campanis.”

Lasorda, who regarded Campanis as a mentor and father figure, said, “They have hung an innocent man. Who do you think signed Roberto Clemente? Who do you think signed Willie Davis and so many other black players? This story has to be told.”

Koufax sent a telegram urging Campanis not to let one event mar the accomplishments of a lifetime.

But in the view of others, it did.

Koppel called it a generational tragedy from which Campanis was never able to reestablish his career or life.

The Final Years

Campanis, who emigrated from the Greek isle of Kos, graduated from New York University and became one of baseball’s most respected executives, returned to Dodger Stadium on occasion in the empty position of consultant. For a time he worked with University of California sociology professor Harry Edwards on a program to spur minority hiring in baseball. He briefly served as general manager of a minor league team in Palm Springs.

However, the Dodgers never held a day in his honor, and in his final 10 years, Campanis generally appeared to be a forlorn and increasingly frail figure at ballparks and owners’ meetings, vainly seeking a meaningful job in the game.

“Dad had tough skin. He recognized that’s the way life is,” George Campanis said. “We talked about it many times. He knew in his heart he wasn’t a racist, and his friends knew it, players knew it, people in the front office knew it.

“He looked on the positive side of it and felt that if his firing was instrumental in the hiring of even one black man as a general manager or manager, it would have been worth it.”

The “Nightline” incident did prompt baseball to reexamine its minority hiring practices, leading to improved percentages among coaches, managers and lesser front office positions. There are currently four minority managers and no general managers, although Bob Watson, who is black, was general manager of the New York Yankees when that team won the 1996 World Series. National League president Leonard Coleman is black, as was his predecessor, Bill White.

Around baseball Sunday, people remembered Campanis for many reasons.

“I have never been around a fairer man in my life,” said Russell, the Dodger manager. “This guy gave chances to many, many people. His relationship with Jackie [Robinson] through the years shows you how Al really was.”

Said Texas Ranger manager Johnny Oates, who played for the Dodgers in the late 1970s: “We all have said things we wish we hadn’t. Unfortunately, words can cut deeper than any instrument we have. Words live. You can do a million good things in your life, but sometimes one bad thing, one misspoken word, is never forgiven.”

Said longtime Dodger coach Manny Mota: “Mr. Campanis was a great person, a great human being. He treated everyone with a great deal of respect. He gave the Latin players a lot of opportunities to play in the Dodger organization. We called him the father of Latin baseball.”

Dodger Vice President Fred Claire said his predecessor’s life was family and baseball, and that he touched people around the world.

“I had a long relationship with Al when he was the general manager, and to see his approach and how he drew from others, I’m very fortunate to have had that experience,” Claire said. “I’ll always be grateful for the support he gave me.”

Campanis is survived by sons George and Jimmy, five grandchildren and two great grandchildren. Services are pending.

*

J.A. ADANDE

The memory is vivid: Campanis at the Astrodome, digging a deeper hole with every word. C1

* ROSS NEWHAN

A lifetime in baseball as player, scout and executive ended with a strange and sad event. C8