In another time, the sign would have read: “Colored need not apply.” Now it reads: “Blacks and Latinos need not apply.”

The sign doesn’t actually exist outside 245 Park Avenue in Manhattan – Major League Baseball headquarters – or at the offices of MLB’s 30 clubs.

But it might as well.

When Bud Selig was commissioner, he established a policy that clubs had to consider and interview minority candidates when they were seeking people for five decision-making positions, most notably manager and general manager.

This was not an original idea from Selig’s playbook, but he did it at the urging of Len Coleman, the National League president. Selig, however, seemed to allow his policy to lapse to the point where today blacks and Latinos have virtually no chance of being interviewed, let alone hired.

Major League Baseball, again through Coleman’s lobbying efforts, celebrates Jackie Robinson for the heroic role he played in baseball history, but MLB mocks Robinson’s legacy. Today Robinson couldn’t get a job as manager or general manager.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote that I thought Rob Manfred, the new commissioner, would do the right thing and reinvigorate the interview policy. I continue to think that despite this month’s developments that saw the hiring of two managers who look very white.

Milwaukee hired Craig Counsell and Miami hired Dan Jennings, both making the appointments without interviewing any blacks or Latinos and incurred no disciplinary action by Manfred.

“Both clubs advised the commissioner’s office they were hiring managers internally and weren’t interviewing other candidates,” an official said. “They followed the guidelines for those hirings.”

“These situations are the trickiest,” said another official.

The appointments of Counsell and Jennings extended to eight the number of managers hired since the end of last season. There’s not a minority among them.

As if blacks and Latinos don’t have enough difficulty getting managerial jobs, the Counsell and Jennings hirings show how much more difficult it is. Manfred underlined that reality in a memo he sent to all clubs earlier this month.

“In those instances when a qualified internal candidate is under prime consideration to fill one of these positions, I will be open to communicating with Clubs about the possibility of allowing a different interview process,” Manfred wrote in his May 3 memo on “interview process for key baseball positions.”

Manfred’s intentions were honorable, but he might have unwittingly reminded the clubs how they could avoid the minority interview requirement. Manfred issued his memorandum the day before the Brewers named Counsell, knowing they were doing that and wanting to reiterate the interview policy.

But he also highlighted another aspect of minority hiring.

Taking the five positions Selig initially identified and Manfred cited as falling under the policy, I found a total of 177 people in those jobs. How many are blacks or Latinos? I found nine.

That’s five percent, not a very large pool of potential candidates. Three of the nine are general managers or the equivalent; two are managers. Unless the Seattle Mariners start playing and winning the way they were expected to, the manager population may very well lose 50 percent (Lloyd McClendon).

Here is the memo, a copy of which I obtained this week:

In January 1998, the Major League Executive Council passed a resolution authorizing sanctions for any Clubs that failed to aggressively pursue equal opportunity policies and initiatives. In April 1999, the Office of the Commissioner took an additional step – one that has since been replicated in the professional sports landscape – by requiring each team to consider minority candidates for all General Manager, Assistant General Manager, Field Manager, Director of Player Development and Director of Scouting positions. As a part of the latter effort, the Commissioner’s Office began to provide information to any Clubs that sought assistance in identifying candidates for these positions.

It is the Office of the Commissioner’s ardent belief that Clubs should seek out a diverse pool of candidates, including minority and female executives, for key baseball operations positions. Because of this issue’s significance to our game, I not only reinforce the continuation of the policies described above, but also relay these additional guidelines:

• In all circumstances when any of these five positions – GM, AGM, field manager, player development director and scouting director – is vacant and will be filled, Clubs must keep me apprised of the status of the job search before filling the position.
• If a Club intends to interview candidates from outside its organization, I fully expect that the Club will consider and interview at least one minority candidate.
• In those instances when a qualified internal candidate is under prime consideration to fill one of these positions, I will be open to communicating with Clubs about the possibility of allowing a different interview process.

I believe that this policy will help our game progress in a fundamental way, and I will not hesitate to sanction Clubs that do not comply with it.

Major League Baseball, which is proudly a sport of inclusion, must continue to pursue and develop more opportunities for minorities and women throughout our game. I urge each Club to give special consideration to female and minority candidates for internships and entry level positions throughout your organizations. One of the most effective ways to create a pool of diverse senior executives throughout MLB is to create opportunities for diverse candidates to become part of MLB early in their careers. I have asked the Diversity Committee to focus on the issue of attracting and retaining qualified female and minority employees in MLB, and to make recommendations to me to enhance our policies in this area.

Please contact me or Dan Halem, Chief Legal Officer, if you have any questions. I thank you for your cooperation.

If teams were to follow the example of the Brewers and the Marlins and look internally for a manager or a general manager, they wouldn’t have many minority candidates to consider based on the existing five percent.

Selig always used to say he couldn’t tell teams whom to hire, but the commissioner can certainly use the bully pulpit of his office to persuade a team to hire a deserving individual.

Last winter, for example, Willie Randolph was seeking a coaching job with the New York Yankees. Randolph, who had been out of baseball for three years, had served half a lifetime with the Yankees – 13 years as a player, during which he was their captain, and 10 years as a coach. He played in three World Series and coached in six with them.

But after making him wait for two months without an answer, they snubbed him and instead hired Joe Espada, who had coached for four years with the Marlins. A Puerto Rican, Espada is a minority, but Randolph is jobless for the fourth straight year. That’s a lifetime itself for a 60-year-old baseball veteran.

In these days of younger talent getting jobs, maybe Randolph’s age worked against him. Espada was born a month after Randolph played in his first major league game.

Jennings, who is the Marlins’ eighth manager in 13 years under owner Jeffrey Loria (three of them Hispanic), never played in a game in the majors or the minors. He spent most of his baseball career as a scout and talent evaluator. He was the Marlins’ general manager for a year and a half.

Loria didn’t return calls to discuss his decision to fire Mike Redmond and make Jennings the manager, but he told reporters in Florida, “We need a different set of skills to harness the potent combination of talent we’ve put together. We can’t think of anyone better suited for the job than Dan Jennings – one of the people responsible for putting these players together, who can now play a more active role in getting the most out of them. D.J. is a passionate baseball man with decades of experience in multiple major league roles.”

The Marlins were one of the most active teams in the off-season, signing right fielder Giancarlo Stanton to a 13-year, $325 million contract and in acquiring first baseman Mike Morse, second baseman Dee Gordon, third baseman Martin Prado, outfielder Ichiro Suzuki and starting pitchers Dan Haren, Mat Latos and David Phelps.

Redmond paid the Loria price for not winning; the Marlins had a 16-22 record when he was fired. But they lost their first three games under Jennings.

Ron Roenicke was fired in Milwaukee after the Brewers played poorly in the first month, making an unhappy owner of Mark Attanasio. Doug Melvin, president of baseball operations and general manager, said he did not interview any candidates besides Counsell, a special assistant to Melvin.

“We went with Craig,” Melvin said in a telephone interview. “We got permission from the commissioner’s office. Craig knows our organization as well as anybody from the outside.”

Asked about minorities, Melvin said, “The names of Manny Acta and Dusty Baker came up, but we were afraid we were going to lose Craig. He was approached by some other clubs. He came into clear focus when we thought about his leadership position. We decided the manager’s job probably would be better with him.”

There is nothing wrong with the Brewers’ decision to make Counsell the manager to make sure someone else doesn’t snatch him. What is wrong is the absence of similar opportunities for blacks and Latinos. Manfred gets credit for telling clubs what they need to do.

“One of the most effective ways to create a pool of diverse senior executives throughout MLB,” he wrote, “is to create opportunities for diverse candidates to become part of MLB early in their careers.”

Maybe Manfred’s strong start in this area can offset Selig’s slowdown as he coasted into retirement.