When Bud Selig was Major League Baseball’s commissioner, he had a stock answer when anyone raised the question of minority hiring. “I can’t tell the clubs whom they should hire,” he would say, though he most likely was not so grammatically correct.
Although I haven’t heard Rob Manfred, Selig’s successor, make a similar statement, I would guess he has. However, according to an executive with an impeccable record of years of accuracy with me, Manfred has done just that with the hiring of a new general manager in Milwaukee.
My knowledgeable executive told me Manfred pushed – that was his word – the Brewers to hire David Stearns, a 30-year-old Harvard graduate, who has been an assistant general manager with the Houston Astros the past three years.
Why would Manfred take such an aggressive interest in Stearns’ status? A little knowledge of Stearns’ background readily answers that question.
Stearns worked in the commissioner’s office for three years, starting as an intern upon graduation from Harvard and becoming manager of labor relations.
Who would you guess was Stearns’ boss in that latter position? None other than Manfred, MLB’s chief labor executive at the time.
I don’t know if any young black or Latino – man or woman – ever worked under Manfred, but I have never heard that Manfred “pushed” anyone else for such a high-ranking position. Manfred’s effort on behalf of a young white male is a blow to MLB’s already empty pledge to enhance minority hiring.
Last week I wrote about De Jon Watson, a 49-year-old executive with the Arizona Diamondbacks. Despite the high number of general manager vacancies, Watson has not been interviewed for any of those jobs. The last time I asked, Tony La Russa, Watson’s boss, said no team had sought permission to talk to Watson.
Watson, you should know, is “of color,” a phrase my wife prefers, and his color apparently supersedes his impressive resume of 24 years in Major League Baseball.
La Russa, the Diamondbacks’ chief baseball officer, was so impressed with Watson when he hired him last winter as senior vice president for baseball operations that he wanted to call other clubs in Watson’s behalf for a general manager’s position.
As far as I know, Manfred made no such calls. For all I know, Manfred has never met or spoken with Watson. Maybe he has never seen Watson’s resume. Apparently not many owners have seen it either. Watson said he has had three interviews for general managers’ jobs in prior years, and two of those were with the Diamondbacks. Maybe other owners just saw his photo and proceeded to the next candidate.
Watson does not want to be viewed as a minority candidate; he prefers to be thought of simply as a candidate. At the moment, however, he is neither; his door bell hasn’t rung, and his telephone has been silent.
Instead of pushing Stearns for the Milwaukee job, the commissioner should recognize what a good candidate of any sort Watson is and call clubs with G.M. vacancies and encourage them to interview Watson.
“He’s the most qualified by resume,” a former general manager said of Watson.
He is not an Ivy League graduate, he doesn’t have a degree in analytics and he’s no kid. He is 49 years old and has impressed the heck out of La Russa.
I would ask Manfred what, if anything, he thinks of Watson, but he chooses not to talk to me but to reply to my questions through Pat Courtney, MLB’s chief communications officer. So taking what I get, this was the commissioner’s reaction to my source’s saying he pushed the Brewers’ owner to hire Stearns.
“Mark Attanasio and the Commissioner discussed two topics,” Courtney wrote in an e-mail. “The first regarded minority candidates and ensuring that the interview requirement had been meaningfully met. Rob is satisfied that the requirement was met in that regard.
“The second topic was Mr. Attanasio asking Rob about David Stearns since David had worked for Rob previously at the Commissioner’s Office. Rob gave David a positive review.”
Notice that nowhere in Manfred’s comment about his conversation with Attanasio about Stearns did the commissioner deny that he “pushed” the owner to hire Stearns. Manfred might have acknowledged that the Brewers’ owner asked him about Stearns, but he didn’t say, “But I didn’t push him to hire Stearns.”
Courtney, however, defended MLB’s minority hiring.
“We are proactively ensuring that the Commissioner’s policy on the interview process for key baseball operations positions is being met,” he wrote in his e-mail. “We have partnered with Korn Ferry on initiatives and programs to develop future diverse baseball operations leaders and are also actively working on improving the minority pool for entry-level positions. Our office will remain vigilant and will continue to make minority and diverse hiring a priority.”
I’d like to take Manfred at his word, but he’s done nothing to demonstrate that he means it. He pushed the Brewers to hire Stearns, but last week the Red Sox name two high-ranking executives, both white, and Manfred does nothing to encourage them to do otherwise.
The Red Sox promoted Mike Hazen from assistant general manager to general manager after also interviewing a black candidate, Quinton McCracken.
But then the Red Sox hired Frank Wren, like Hazen a white guy, as senior vice president for baseball operations. Presumably the Red Sox got away without having to interview a minority candidate for that position because it is not among the jobs for which clubs are required to interview minorities.
That’s just another way the commissioner lets clubs evade the minority-interview rule. Manfred apparently allowed the Red Sox to hire Dave Dombrowski as president of baseball operations without minority interviews because it was a newly created position and the Red Sox weren’t replacing anyone. That, at least, was how John Henry, the team’s principal owner, explained it to me.
McCracken, the Astros’ player development director, was one of four black candidates known to have been interviewed for vacancies recently. The interesting thing about them is they were interviewed by four different teams. None of them was apparently interviewed by more than that one team.
Besides McCracken, Tyrone Brooks, Pirates’ player personnel director, had an interview with the Brewers; Dana Brown, Blue Jays’ special assistant to the general manager, with the Mariners, and Chris Gwynn, Mariners’ player development director, with the Angels.
It’s as if the teams got together (teams have proved they are good at colluding), put names of black officials into a hat and took turns selecting names to decide who would interview whom.
White candidates were under no such restrictions. They were interviewed at will. Some were even hired.
Gwynn’s interview was particularly curious. According to a headline in the Sept. 28 Los Angeles Times, “Angels add Chris Gwynn to long list of general manager candidates.”
Gwynn was No. 9 on the Angels’ interview list, but a week before his interview I was told and reported in my Sept. 20 column that the Angels had decided to hire Billy Eppler, the Yankees’ assistant general manager. The Gwynn interview fell into the category of what I call sham interviews.
What about the other minority interviews? Only Brooks returned my call, and he said he felt his interview was legitimate.
“I thought it went very well,” Brooks said of his interview with Attanasio, the Brewers’ owner, and three associates. “I thought I was a legitimate candidate.”
The Brewers, Brooks said, began with a list of about 40 candidates, then cut it to 11 and finally to 5. “I was one of the five,” he said. “I was excited about the opportunity. They were the only team that reached out. I’m glad I went through the process. Unfortunately it didn’t work out.”
Taking nothing away from Brooks, 42, who has been in baseball for 20 years, or any of the others, I suspect they were unwitting role players in the clubs’ charade of going through the motions to make it appear that they were adhering to the minority-interview rule.
Why else would four clubs select four basically unknown black candidates to interview for their top baseball operation jobs? If they were serious about considering a black candidate, why wouldn’t they interview De Jon Watson? As the former general manager said, “He’s the most qualified by resume.”
If Manfred were serious about a club’s hiring a black or Latino general manager, why wouldn’t he suggest to clubs that they couldn’t do better than interviewing Watson?”
And if there’s something I don’t know about Watson that would disqualify him as a legitimate candidate, let me know. I stand ready to listen.
In the meantime, I have to conclude that Manfred, who became commissioner eight months ago, has started on minority hiring as poorly as Selig finished.
FEMALE GENERAL MANAGER?
MLB is probably not ready for a woman general manager. But there has been speculation in baseball circles that Andy MacPhail, the Phillies’ incoming president, could hire Kim Ng, a former assistant general manager, now senior vice president of baseball operations in the commissioner’s office. Ng is the only woman who has worked her way into position to be worthy of such consideration.