Editor's note: ESPN baseball analysts Doug Glanville and Alex Cora debate the merits of the Selig Rule, which requires every club to consider minority candidates for high-level positions within organizations.
Dear Alex,
After the Braves fired Fredi Gonzalez, we were in the studio having a friendly debate. We were able to agree on one thing: There are unique challenges in being a minority candidate for manager. (You interviewed with the Padres. I interviewed with the Rays. We know firsthand.) The Selig Rule is in place to ensure we get a foot in the door, but it isn't necessarily the answer to all of those challenges. You, specifically, expressed the drawbacks of forcing ownership to interview minority candidates and how it can blind a team from seeing you for your qualifications and not just interviewing you to check a box.
Understandably, this led you to conclude we should eliminate the Selig Rule. I saw the other side.
The Selig Rule is for more than on-field managers. It has added inclusive hiring practices, with positive results, for many throughout the league and within a team's administration. Goodwill is important to reversing a long-standing lack of diversity at baseball's highest levels. But it is also critical to have a policy and even a legal framework in place to ensure that future, lessons I believe are connected to our civil rights movement in the United States.
I played winter ball in your home country of Puerto Rico in 1994 and 1995. My experience not only transformed my career but also my life. From what I learned on the field to the way I, a non-native, was embraced like family, I have since felt a strong responsibility and obligation to players of Latin descent.
Two weeks ago, when the Braves fired Gonzalez, the only Latino manager in Major League Baseball, I paid close attention to questions that revolved around where MLB stands on matters of diversity. There are only two minority managers in the majors, neither of whom are Latino. What would it take to create an environment that reflects the diversity in baseball throughout all facets of leadership?
The Selig Rule was put in place in 1999 to encourage teams to be more inclusive in the interview process. At the time, then-commissioner Bud Selig stated that it required clubs to consider minority candidates for "all general manager, assistant general manager, field manager, director of player development and director of scouting positions." He cited fairness and noted the game would limit its potential if qualifications were viewed through a monochromatic lens.
I've heard your concerns with some of the byproducts of this policy. As a Latino who has dedicated his life to the game, you may feel that the Selig Rule's mandatory requirement to interview minorities is only to fulfill a racial quota. You feel marginalized as soon as you walk through the door. And if you do get the job, you now feel like the Latino manager who is lucky to be there. The policy has not borne fruit as quickly as even Selig thought it might. Both managers of color, both African-American, were hired in the 11th hour this past offseason.
To me, the Selig Rule mirrors affirmative action and other legal remedies needed to make American institutions inclusive, to diversify and to more fairly represent people who have been denied access to these institutions since the inception of the country. At first, the minorities who finally did get that access, felt -- and were made to feel -- like tokens. It reminds me of my freshman year at the University of Pennsylvania. There were people who were outraged by my presence. I was told the only reason I got into an Ivy League school was because of my race or because I was a baseball player.
My freshman year, I wanted people to know I was qualified. They eventually learned more about me, yet few of them wanted to talk about the flip side of the equation: privilege. Legacy students got preferential treatment, a benefit few minorities could claim at the time. This historical advantage exponentially influenced the present. It's like deals made on the golf course, where entire classes of people can't get a membership. This still happens in baseball, where Latino ballplayers are nearly 30 percent of the game's members.
Throughout U.S. history, progress has come from the courage of that first person who sought to change the norm. Jackie Robinson is the quintessential example. But behind even his monumental courage, the legislative process had to ensure progress was secured.
He came before the civil rights movement (and many credit him as the spark), which eventually led to Brown v. Board of Education, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. Having goodwill was not enough. It also needed to be law.
The Selig Rule came about because the commissioner of baseball, by his own assessment, knew things weren't changing enough. The game still reeled from the comments of Dodgers' executive Al Campanis (15 years after Robinson asked the game to hire black coaches and managers), who framed the toxic sentiment toward African-Americans as not having some of the "necessities" to be leaders. Campanis was demonized, but his comments also unmasked a larger issue -- rampant cronyism. Selig believed he had to make sure teams at least considered qualified outsiders. He also wanted to bring to light that these outsiders were seen as such in part because of race and that he needed to address their long-standing history of waiting for opportunity this game.
The owners are running corporations and have the right to hire whom they see fit. There is a lot at stake, but a lot of that "fit" is because people in power, as Dan LeBatard noted, "tend to hire people who have commonalities with them ... shared experiences, connection points."
When the highest power only reflects one segment of your game, distributing power often ends up reflecting a homogeneous leadership and growing inequality from there -- unless you change the rules.
The game owes a great deal to the legacy of Latino baseball players. I saw coaches and staff in Puerto Rico who were lifers and who worked as mentors, exemplifying dedication and expertise. Think about the "Dream Team" from Puerto Rico: Roberto Alomar, Carlos Delgado, Edgar Martinez, Ivan Rodriguez, Carlos Baerga, Juan Gonzalez and Ruben Sierra to name a famous few. Not only are they talented, but they also have brilliant baseball minds. And they learned from people like Sandy Alomar Sr., who has coached for eternity. In Puerto Rico, I came to understand that while I was resting in the winter, there were thousands of players across Latin America who were still playing, showing a year-round passion and commitment. I would like to think those traits are universal ingredients to being a fantastic manager.
No one reflected passion and commitment more than Puerto Rican giant, Roberto Clemente, who endured perpetual scrutiny because of a cultural divide, yet still transformed this game and the communities around it with selfless dedication. Baseball has an obligation to have the generations of Latin players who came before and after Clemente to be represented at the highest levels of this game. We have had generations of Latino baseball players who have not had a seat at the table with the game's power brokers. Yet, baseball has long cultivated a relationship with Latin players for performance gains, initially playing out through the inexpensive nature of obtaining Latin American talent.
But we must keep in mind that there have been strides made by people who genuinely care about baseball's inequity problem. But these paradigm shifts take time, especially inside a society that had such long-standing barriers to diversity. It's a long process, which takes steadfast commitment. I believe Manfred (and the MLBPA) have identified some good practices that we should collectively embrace.
In the middle of last season, the Marlins hired their general manager Dan Jennings to manage on field. It was part of a new wave in which longtime respected players such as Craig Counsell, Brad Ausmus, Mike Matheny, Paul Molitor, Matt Williams, Walt Weiss and Robin Ventura were given managerial jobs. They didn't have managerial experience, and, despite that, many found success. But lack of experience is often cited as a reason for not hiring minority managers. Now it becomes easy to ask: Why not Joey Cora? Sandy Alomar Jr.? Dave Martinez? Doug Glanville? Why not you?
Alex, I know we both want to see the best our game has to offer to responsibly lead its future, regardless of that leader's background. There have been so many amazing candidates that have already missed the opportunity to manage because they were born at the wrong time for race and baseball to fit. But not only do you deserve to be part of the club, you are also a part-owner of the game's legacy. You should have a key.
Baseball has a rich history in social justice, and I will always challenge baseball leadership to maintain the high standard that was created when it became the first major American institution to voluntarily integrate before the legal constructs were created for the rest of our society. Let's continue to hold our game to that high standard and celebrate something I most value about our game's potential: inclusive diversity.
We all love the game, we all helped to build this game, and all deserve to be represented in this game.
Everywhere.
Con el mundo de respeto y sinceridad.
Tu pana y hermano de Puerto Rico,
Doug