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 …

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It’s not really going out on a limb to claim that the Royals’ trio of stellar relief pitchers was instrumental to the team’s surprise World Series run last year. Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis, and Greg Holland collectively threw 64% of the Royals’ relief innings during the 2014 playoffs; that number shoots up to 77% in games in which the Royals were competitive, discounting their two blowout losses in the World Series. The trio allowed just five runs in 40.1 innings, not surrendering a single lead throughout October as Kansas City finished one agonizing run short of a title.

That dominance led to a great quip from Royals’ manager Ned Yost: “After the sixth inning, my thinking is done,” he said during the postseason.

Through the first 36 games of this year …

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Joe Garagiola Sr. knows more about the 90-year-old life of Yogi Berra than anyone, but he doesn’t know why the St. Louis Cardinals let Berra get away.

“A blind man could see he was the best hitter on the block,” Garagiola said.

The block Garagiola referred to in a telephone interview Wednesday, the day after Berra’s 90th birthday, was the block on Elizabeth Avenue in St. Louis, in the Italian section known as The Hill, where Berra and Garagiola grew up across the street from each other.

“It was great growing up with him,” said Garagiola, who is nine months younger.

Both became catchers, good catchers, because …

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