There’s a saying in baseball that on any day you can see something you’ve never seen before. On Tuesday I didn’t see something for the first time, but I learned something I didn’t know.
What I did know was that the Toronto Blue Jays had hired Mark Shapiro as their new president and chief executive officer without interviewing any minority candidates. The only other person the Blue Jays talked to, I was told, was Dave Dombrowski, whom the Boston Red Sox hired a few days later as their president of baseball operations.
The Red Sox didn’t interview any minority candidates, contrary to the rule established in 1999 by Commissioner Bud Selig, but they didn’t have to because Selig’s successor, Rob Manfred, gave them special dispensation.
Did Manfred also give the Blue Jays special dispensation before they hired Shapiro, whom, by the way, I would consider hiring if I owned a team and was looking for a president? No, Manfred did not; he didn’t have to because – and this is what I learned – the job of club president is not on the level of positions for which clubs have to interview minorities.
“The rule has applied to baseball operations positions. It has never applied to club presidents,” Pat Courtney, Major League Baseball’s chief communications officer, said. Why hasn’t it, I asked.
“The rule, like the Rooney Rule in the NFL, was focused on high visibility on-field and baseball operations positions,” Courtney replied in an e-mail. “In most organizations, the club president performs a more traditional business function.”
In my view, I see the omission of club president as another shortcoming in the rule as Selig established it and as Manfred has failed to strengthen it. Whether or not most club presidents serve in “a more traditional business function,” it is a high-ranking position to which blacks and Latinos might actually aspire.
When Dombrowski was in Detroit, he was the club president. Other former general managers have been or are club presidents: Pat Gillick in Philadelphia, Andy MacPhail in Chicago with the Cubs and in Philadelphia next month, John Schuerholz in Atlanta and Shapiro in Cleveland and Toronto.
Why was Selig so short-sighted in not including president with general manager, directors of scouting and player development and managers? Why is Manfred being so short-sighted in not adding president? The aim should be to create opportunities where none have existed and to establish a level playing field where impossibly steep inclines have served as roadblocks.
It was weak enough when Manfred said in July that the minority-interview rule should be “tweaked.” But he has done nothing even to tweak the rule. Adding president to the rule might be tweaking it, but that apparently isn’t a tweak that the commissioner is willing to take.
So in the past two months teams have made three major front-office hires (MacPhail, Dombrowski, Shapiro), and no blacks or Latinos were interviewed for the jobs. I wouldn’t call this a promising start to Manfred’s plans to improve minority hiring.
It’s not entirely accurate to say the Blue Jays interviewed no minorities for their impending vacancy in the president’s office, even though as it turns out they weren’t required to hold minority interviews.
Last winter the Blue Jays talked to Kenny Williams, former general manager and now executive vice president of the Chicago White Sox. The problem was the Blue Jays didn’t have permission to talk to Williams or Dan Duquette, Baltimore’s executive vice president of baseball operations, whom the Blue Jays also found to be an interesting candidate.
It seems that Edward Rogers, Blue Jays chairman and deputy chairman of Rogers Communications, the team’s owner, had decided to dismiss Paul Beeston, the veteran president and CEO, and start his own search for a replacement. He was said to have asked the top executive of another organization for recommendations, got the names of Williams and Duquette
and proceeded to contact them.
One small problem. Unfamiliar with MLB protocol, Rogers apparently didn’t know he needed the other team’s permission to talk to its employee. Williams and Duquette declined to talk about the matter, but there seemed to be no question that Rogers talked to both before learning of his gaffe and ceasing his search, reaching agreement with Beeston to stay another year.
Based on a story that has circulated in baseball circles, Rogers eventually called Jerry Reinsdorf, the White Sox chairman, and asked for permission to talk to Williams. Reinsdorf called Williams to alert him that he might be getting a call from the Blue Jays.
“Kenny said ‘they already called me,’” Reinsdorf has related.
Williams was said to be interested in talking to the Blue Jays about the president’s job, but Reinsdorf said no for now.
“I don’t want to get into that,” Williams said in a telephone interview Tuesday. “Too much was written about it last year.”
Asked if he would be interested in becoming a club president, Williams said, “It’s something that I’ve gone back and forth on. Ideally, I’d like to stay here in Chicago and win another championship. That’s been my goal from the outset. Nothing would make me happier than to achieve that goal. If something came up, you’d have to evaluate the ownership, the team. I can’t give you an answer.”
A six-year major league outfielder with four teams, Williams was the White Sox general manager for a dozen years, building the team that won the 2005 World Series. He relinquished the G.M. job in 2012. Is he flattered that someone would consider him for the job of president?
“Yes, I’m very flattered,” the 51-year-old Williams said. “Who wouldn’t be flattered by it?” But, he added, “I don’t pay much attention to it beyond that. It’s hard for me to be that straightforward. I don’t want it to be I need a job because I’m black.”
Nevertheless, Williams said, “Scout, farm director, general manager. That all speaks for itself. I think I’ve earned the right to have my resume compared with others on that basis.”
Williams has benefited from working for Reinsdorf, who easily alienates other owners, not to mention members of the news media, but who has long been the most liberal owner in terms of minority hiring.
“He gave me an opportunity where I’m sure no one else would have,” Williams said.
Not that minority hiring is better than ever, but Williams sees potential problems ahead.
“I’m really concerned about it,” he said. “I think the sabermetrics trend is going to be even more exclusive. The danger is an already limited pool. It’s more shrinking of the pool and that’s a concern.”
Williams referred to the growing emphasis on analytics and statistical analysis at the expense of old-fashioned player evaluation through scouting. Teams are hiring Ivy League-type graduates with computer and analytic expertise for front office positions, and white males far outnumber minorities in that competition for baseball jobs.
There may not be any other club presidents hired in the near future, but the end of this season could produce openings for general managers and managers and Manfred will face a major test in the way he oversees clubs’ efforts in following the minority-interview rule. He will not win any points for allowing teams’ transparently questionable excuses for not interviewing blacks and minorities.
First up will be the Seattle Mariners, who last week fired their general manager, 
Jack Zduriencik. I asked a person close to the Mariners what names have been mentioned, and he said Jerry Dipoto, who left the Angels as their general manager earlier this season; Larry Beinfest, Miami’s former general manager; Dan Jennings, who stepped down from his job as the Marlins’ general manager to be their manager, and Jason McLeod, the Cubs’ senior vice president for player development and amateur scouting. All these potential candidates have one thing in common. That’s right, they are all white.
Members of the analytics army may be excluded from consideration because the team president, Kevin Mather, has said the Mariners want someone with experience.
Interestingly, Williams’ name has come up frequently, but it’s unlikely Reinsdorf would let him go. That is, unless the Mariners wanted to hire Williams as president of baseball operations. That is a semantical trick that the Cubs played to get Theo Epstein from the Red Sox and the Dodgers used to lure Andrew Friedman from Tampa Bay.