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opinion:
our view
Stewart calls
out baseball owners
Dave Stewart is fed
up and he's not going to take it anymore.
Stewart, a respected member of the Toronto Blue Jays' front
office who just happens to be black, resigned Wednesday when
he was passed up for the umpteenth time to become the team's
general manager.
Major League Baseball has only five minority managers and one
minority general manager in its ranks. Four general managers
have been hired this summer, including Toronto's hiring of J.P.
Ricciardi, and none have been minorities.
Stewart, who has been a perpetual candidate to fill the general
manager position, quit because he was tired of taking part in
an interview process he felt included him and other minorities
as fodder so baseball could achieve a quota of minority candidates.
Other professional sports are no different, with non-minorities
dominating positions of power while the occasional minority
candidate is hired.
Last year's Super Bowl seemed like a backdrop to the saga of
Baltimore Ravens' defensive coordinator Marvin Lewis, who is
black. Lewis was one of the hottest head coaching prospects
at the time and was the subject of many a media story charting
the progress of his job possibilities.
Lewis had the credentials, the experience and the mettle to
be a NFL head man, but apparently had the wrong color skin -
Lewis was passed over for four different head coaching jobs.
He is currently guiding the Ravens defense and still waiting
for a chance to be a head coach.
College sports aren't much better. Michigan State's Bobby Williams,
Stanford's Tyrone Willingham, San Jose State's Fitz Hill, New
Mexico State's Tony Samuel and Louisiana-Lafayette's Jerry Baldwin
are the only black head coaches among Division I-A's 115 teams.
It seems there is always an excuse, always a reason for not
hiring a minority candidate. They weren't qualified, they had
a bad interview, etc.
While we know some of these reasons might be justified, there
have been too many cases involving minorities not to believe
there is a trend. Anyone who knows baseball knows Stewart's
qualifications, just as those who know football know what Lewis
could have brought to a team.
Stewart's case is just the latest in a disturbing pattern professional
and college sports perpetuate. Hire just enough minorities to
keep people off their backs, then when a case like Stewart's
hits the media, hire a minority or two to quell the anger.
Aren't these cases - and countless others - just metaphors for
the real world of hiring, firings and backdoor politics?
Sometimes, even if a person is the most qualified applicant
for the job, they just won't get the job, contract, or whatever.
This, apparently, is just the way it is. Why? We would like
to know. |
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