With the end of the baseball season (regular season) upon us, now it's time for the revolving doors of the team Manager positions to start spinning.
In Detroit, Trammell is out. Leyland could be in.
In Los Angelos, Tracy is out. Who knows who will be in.
In Tampa Bay, Piniella is out. Again, who the replacement is remains to be seen.
In Baltimore, Mazzilli was fired long ago. Perhaps with a bit of taint on him from Palmiero's steroid suspension (the firing came very shortly after the suspension, which leaves one to wonder a bit....) Perlozzo was appointed interim manager, but has no idea if he'll be hired longer term.
Which starts to circle back around to where I can speak about the old boy network, the number of white faces that show up in these manager roles, and which continue to show up in them time and again (such as recycling Leyland possibly in Detroit).
I've long since been one of those "hire the best person for the job" folks, and yet baseball continues to under-impress on it's social responsibilities in the areas of hiring diversity for these management type roles. If this was the NFL, we'd be hearing about minority candidates that are being shortlisted for interviews for these openings, and yet with all of these openings in baseball we hear few (relatively) potential minorities for potential hiring to these positions. Why is that?
Worse yet, where are Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and friends to really rock baseball's boat and demand real change and not just lip service?!
I know we've heard that tune before, and I know that baseball basically opened their checkbook, wrote off some black mail (no pun intended) checks to Jackson and friends, and then let themselves get back to business as usual.
Why is it that we're not hearing much about possible minority ownership in the Nationals? Instead, again, we see an auction of a team that is anything but an auction, and which seems to again be headed towards a bona fide hand off of the team over to another good ol' boy and his friends. Most likely Jeff Smulyan, former owner of the Seattle Mariners, who sold off that team when he couldn't hold the town of Seattle for ransom to get a new stadium (which was built sometime after he left town). Not that he'd be a bad owner for the Nationals, but why is it that we can't seem to get more and different faces involved in management positions - both on the field and in the front offices, and why has it become such a dead issue (relatively speaking).
We have politicians that are making rumblings again that they may intervene in baseball's (and other sports') labor agreement to pass steroid testing laws. We have the MLBPA (Major League Baseball Player's Association) threatening to take any such laws to the highest courts since they believe that Congress would be over-stepping their authority. Can you really fathom that? The MLBPA is telling Congress that they dare not, must not, cannot pass a law that will pass consitutional muster that would require testing for *illegal* substances?! Do we not see what is wrong here and the need to fix it?
How have we gotten to this point? In the case of managment and minorities (and the lack there of) is it because we let scum like Jesse Jackson swoop in, make noise, and declare themselves the right man at the right time to represent minorities? What if someone else were to do it? Say Colin Powell, J.C. Watts, or someone from the more moderate or conservative side of the aisle. Hell, for that matter, how about if it was Bill Cosby (though he himself is not without some taint from carrying on affairs and such), or say Michael Jordan or Magic Johnson? Perhaps if we heard from say Charles Barkley (never known to hold his tongue)?
In the case of the PA and the thumbing of noses at toughening the drug testing standards, I would say we have the players themselves to blame. The players don't want to pull back the reigns on their lapdog/bulldog Donald Fehr. They see him as doing necessary evil, protecting their rights, getting them more of their fair share of the money that flows around the game. That is perhaps true, but he is also about to wind up costing many of those players their rights against potential random drug testing. Steroids will be removed from the game, and Congress may very well pass laws that do pass constitutional muster to do it. Baseball could very well lose it's anti-trust exemption, and then we could see all hell break lose for the owners and the players.
Enough for now (from me), but perhaps others have thoughts here?
