Seattle Times: MLB has a race problem
From the Seattle Times editorial board on October 7, 2015, with mention of SABR members Adrian Burgos Jr. and Anthony Salazar:
IN an interview last summer with The New York Times, Seattle Mariners Manager Lloyd McClendoncompared being Major League Baseball’s only black manager to “sitting on an island by yourself.”
That island might disappear. McClendon’s future with the team is uncertain after Jerry Dipoto was hired as general manager last month. And Mariner watchers are abuzz about whether Dipoto will keep or replace McClendon.
Regardless, MLB needs to work harder at ensuring that managers of color are not anomalies.
Besides McClendon, the only other person of color in a manager role is Fredi Gonzalez, a Latino who manages the Atlanta Braves.
That’s two in a league of 30 teams; nearly 40 percent of players and assistant coaches on those teams are people of color, according to the 2015 MLB Racial and Gender Report Cardby the University of Central Florida. The report found that the number of nonwhite managers has steadily decreased since 2009, when there were 10.
Read the full editorial here: http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/editorials/major-league-baseball-has-a-race-problem/
Originally published: October 8, 2015. Last Updated: October 8, 2015.