It is a conspiracy theory so intriguing and so bizarre that it’s hard to pass up. It is at least worth reporting. I have tried to contact Jim Crane, the Houston Astros’ owner, to get his response, but he did not respond to telephone calls and e-mail.
Crane came into baseball three years ago with a reputation, deserved or not, for racial remarks he allegedly had made. His critics put him in a class with Donald Sterling, former owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, who was forced to sell his NBA team because of his racial remarks.
Among other questionable comments, the Houston Chronicle quoted Crane as telling executives of one of his other companies not to hire “’blacks because once you hire blacks you can never fire them.’”
On the other hand, Crane, who is known as the best CEO golfer in the country, has played golf with President Obama and Tiger Woods. And he hired Bo Porter to manage the woeful Astros, who had lost more than 100 games in each of the two preceding seasons.
But that act was Part I of the conspiracy theory, its proponents allege. Crane hired Porter, the theory goes, to alleviate the racial criticism, knowing Porter wouldn’t be around long. In other words, he was hired as a cover to be fired.
“Crane was guaranteed to build Brownie points by hiring Bo,” a veteran baseball man said.
The Astros emerged from their first season under Porter with a worse record, 51-111, than they had in the previous two seasons. Given the rickety roster they gave Porter, the Astros couldn’t have expected more. But when the team improved in the first five months of this past season, Porter was fired Sept. 1.The 59-79 record, which computed to a 69-93 for the entire season, meant nothing to the Astros.
They offered a variety of reasons for the decision, but most of the media reports about it focused on differences between Porter and general manager Jeff Luhnow. Crane was not mentioned, and I didn’t see any comments from him that cleared him or implicated him in a conspiracy against Porter.
What Porter’s dismissal did was leave Major League Baseball with four minority managers. When Ron Washington resigned as the Texas manager four days later, three remained. When Joe Maddon replaced Rick Renteria last month, then there were two.
Unless Tampa Bay hires Don Wakamatsu or Raul Ibanez – they, with Kevin Cash, are among the announced finalists for Maddon’s job – the 2015 MLB season will open with two minority managers – Lloyd McClendon in Seattle and Fredi Gonzalez in Atlanta.
They represent the fewest minority managers since 1990, and it could be further back than that, depending on one’s definition of minorities. Compare the potential 2015 number, according to my compilation from a list provided by the Hall of Fame, with nine each in 2002 and 2008, eight each in 2004 and 2009, seven each in 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2010.
Jim Gates, the Hall’s librarian, provided the list of minority managers, adding a caveat that such a list is based on one’s perspective. As examples, he noted that “Ted Williams appears on the list because his mother was Mexican, something he seldom discussed. Tony La Russa is descended from Spaniards, so he is on some Latino lists.”
I choose to leave La Russa off the list, as well as Lou Piniella, who is of Spanish heritage but whose parents were born in this country. La Russa’s parents were of Italian and Spanish heritage, and he was inducted into both Italian American and Hispanic Heritage halls of fame.
“Under no circumstances,” Gates added in his e-mail. “would I say that any definitive racial or ethnic list can be created to meet everyone’s criteria.”
In researching managers who can justifiably be considered members of minorities, I even discovered that some African-Americans don’t believe that Latinos should be classified as minority managers.
However, I will include both in the category of minority managers because there are plenty of blacks and Hispanics who deserve consideration for jobs as managers and are ignored or snubbed by major league teams. As the numbers demonstrate vividly, they are being ignored and snubbed in increasing numbers.
“It’s very sad,” said Don Baylor, who is black and was a major league manager. “They don’t even try.”
At the start of the 1999 season Commissioner Bud Selig, at the urging of Leonard Coleman, whose tenure as National League president was ended that year, issued a directive to clubs dealing with hiring of people for decision-making positions.
He didn’t say they had to hire minorities, but he told them they at least had to interview minorities for the jobs.
Selig was diligent for a while in overseeing the adherence to his order, but he subsequently became lax in his enforcement of the directive. Clubs ignored it with impunity, and if the commissioner called them on it, any excuse seemed to do.
In the off-season three years ago, five clubs that were seeking new general managers or managers ignored Selig’s directive and interviewed no minorities. When I asked the commissioner about it, he said, “I’m quite satisfied that all the clubs have done what they’re supposed to do.”
He also declined to offer specifics on the interviewing process. “We don’t talk about it,” he said.
I did not ask him about this off-season’s searches for five managers and seven general managers or presidents of baseball operations. From vast experience, I knew the answer would be the same.
One club, the Rays, announced the candidates they planned to interview for their managerial vacancy. It included minorities.
Of the 12 available general manager and manager positions, two have been filled by minorities, Dave Stewart as general manager of the Diamondbacks and Farhan Zaidi as general manager of the Dodgers. Maybe Zaidi should count twice. A Pakistani, he grew up in the Philippines.
In a conversation last year about minority hiring, Selig said, “I’m very sensitive about the subject. We talk about it all the time. People tell me we have tons of people in the pipeline. I think we do.”
Maybe that’s where the problem is. The pipeline is so loaded it’s clogged, and those aspiring black and Hispanic managers can’t get out.
Baylor, 65 years old, whose birthday is on the same day as my 
oldest son and my Toy Yorkie, has experienced contrasting treatment in his post-playing days. He managed the Rockies for six years and the Cubs for two and a half, serving as Atlanta’s hitting coach the year in between those jobs. Jerry McMorris, the Colorado owner who fired Baylor in 1998, later said that decision was a mistake.
However, no other offers to manage were forthcoming, and at one stretch, Baylor was jobless for three years while seeking a job as a hitting coach.
Chris Chambliss is in that position now. He hasn’t received a telephone call in the two years since the Seattle Mariners let him go as their hitting coach. He has been a major league hitting coach for 15 years with five different teams, including both that play in New York.
“I’ve failed to find anything,” he said in a telephone interview Saturday. “I’ve been home for two years. I made a lot of calls this year and got nothing.” Turning 66 next month, he said he’s not ready to retire.
“I’m in that in between world,” he said. “The general managers are so young they don’t even know me. They don’t call back.”
There was one exception, he added. Brian Cashman, the Yankees’ general manager, called him.
“Cash called me,” Chambliss said. “They changed hitting coaches. He referred me to Gary Denbo, who is taking over for Mark Newman in the minor leagues. Cash is the only g.m. who called me back. Nobody calls you back anymore, even to say they don’t have anything.”
In his younger years, Chambliss wanted to manage and did manage for seven years in the minors but not in the majors. “My desire to manage didn’t come about,” he said.
Dusty Baker managed for 20 years with the Giants, the Cubs and the Reds. His teams played in six division series, two league championship series and one World Series. The Reds fired him after the 2013 season, and no one has called since.
“I haven’t heard from anyone,” the 65-year-old Baker said. “I’ve thought about what it could be, but I don’t know unless someone tells me.” He speculated that the lack of interest in him could be his age or the salary he might want, given his longevity as a manager.
“I put in a couple calls, but I never heard back from anyone. I heard from Frank Robinson a couple months ago and he asked if he could put my name somewhere. I said yes.”
But he hasn’t heard from anybody. Baker, however, isn’t ready to take anything that might drop in his lap. “It’s got to be the right situation,” he said.
“I’ve been in the game since the ‘60s,” he said. “I’ve seen a lot and things were getting better for a while and now things aren’t getting better. Now you get hired based on education and who you’ve aligned yourself with.”
I wasn’t sure what Baker was alluding to, but he soon was talking about the clash between the old-fashioned way of doing things in baseball and the statistical analysis advocates who threaten to consume the game.
He didn’t express a preference for either method but said “it should be a combination of the old school and the new school,” adding, “I believe there’s a combination of both schools that will make the game better. But it’s become this or that. There are no absolutes that you can use. There should be a way that we can combine the two.”
Meanwhile, in place of baseball, Baker has started working his five-acre farm in Sacramento. “I’m a farmer now,” he said. “It’s not a big farm but a quality farm. We have Baker family wine coming.”
I asked him if he was aware of Tom Seaver’s vineyard in northern California. “Seaver’s a veteran,” he said. “I’m a rookie.”
And the future place of baseball in his life? “I’m 65,” he said. “In my mind I had four, five years left.”
At this point Baker the winemaker seems to have a better chance of working than Baker the baseball coach.
Willie Randolph doesn’t have that option. When I spoke to him Friday, he was waiting to hear about a possible job. Given that he hasn’t had one in baseball the past three seasons, he preferred saying nothing about it until it became definite.
I asked him about his experience the past three years, asking if it was a case of out of sight out of mind. “Out of sight out of mind,” the 60-year-old Randolph repeated. “Even when you’re not out of sight you’re out of mind.”
Randolph, who managed the Mets from the start of the 2005 season through 69 games of the 2008 season, last coached with Buck Showalter in Baltimore in 2011. He has coached for 13 other seasons, 11 with the Yankees, 2 with the Brewers.
“It’s been tough for me,” he said of his involuntary three-year hiatus, which was a year short of his previous absence from baseball (2005-2008).
“Some teams have expressed interest, but no one has followed up on it,” he said. “Bo Porter called me, wanted me to be his bench coach. I interviewed with them. Bo asked Luhnow to call me. He offered me first base coach. That’s the only legitimate interview I had.”
In his 14-year coaching career, Randolph has served only as a third-base coach or bench coach.
Selig’s minority hiring program is clearly comatose and needs to be resuscitated. Last year I suggested that instead of saying clubs have to interview minority candidates for decision-making positions, the mandate be changed to telling clubs they have to interview as many minority candidates as white-guy candidates.
The commissioner didn’t rush to change his directive despite his so-called sensitivity to the issue. Maybe the next commissioner will.