HOUSTON — But when does it actually change?
The first World Series since 1950 with no Black players born in the United States underscores a failure Major League Baseball has been aware of for many years, and one that extends beyond the field of play.
Asked before Game 1 of the Phillies-Astros World Series if he personally notices the lack of Black players, commissioner Rob Manfred said that “it’s hard not to.”
“What we strive for, is we want to be inclusive in every aspect of our business,” Manfred told The Athletic. “We want our fan base to be diverse. You can’t have a diverse fan base if you don’t have a diverse product on the field. So yeah, we pay attention to it.
“This is a bottom-up exercise by definition. We’ve invested heavily in youth in general, but with a huge focus on underserved areas, where there’s a lot of diversity. We feel like it’s paying off: four out of our first five (draft picks were Black) this year. Six out of the first 18 were guys who came through our (youth) programs. We just got to give it time and I think it will change. I really do.”
For the first time since Jackie Robinson’s early days as a big leaguer, no US-born Black players are expected to play in the World Series.
“It looks bad,” Astros manager Dusty Baker said today. “But there is help on the way.”
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MLBPA executive director Tony Clark, a former major leaguer who is Black, on Friday recalled a 2006 sit-down with the office of the commissioner, then run by Bud Selig. Clark said about 30 players described the problems with diversity in the sport and suggested potential improvements.
“It’s 2022, and we’re still having the same conversations that we had back in 2006,” Clark said. “I’m a glass-half-full guy — I try to be. But if things were already manifesting themselves in 2006, when we had that conversation, and now we’re sitting here 16 years later having the same conversation… this is not going to change overnight.
“I’d say I’m disappointed. I’d say it’s unfortunate. And I can say that I’m also not surprised. … It is truly unfortunate that any young Black player may be watching these games tonight (and) is not going to see someone that looks like them. And as a result, may make a decision against continuing to play our great game and move on to something else. That is disappointing and disheartening.”
An MLB official noted that earlier this postseason, during the newly expanded wild-card round, there were nine Black players, the most for the league’s first round of the playoffs since 1992. But a larger problem exists beyond the makeup of playoff rosters.
Every year, The Institute for Diversity and Ethics at Sports at the University of Central Florida publishes a report on MLB’s diversity, called the TIDES report for short.
“In 2022, 38.0 percent of the Major League Baseball players are players of color, up from 37.6 percent,” went the most recent report, primarily authored by Richard Lapchick. “Of great significance, the percentage of Black or African American players on Opening Day rosters for 2022 was at 7.2 percent, a decrease of 0.4 percent from 2021. This is the lowest percentage since the Racial and Gender Report Card data started being collected in in 1991 when 18 percent of the MLB players were Black or African American. In 1995, 19.0 percent of Major League Baseball players were African American. The low percentage of Black MLB players has been a serious concern for many years.”
The sport’s diversity shortcomings extends beyond the field of play. Across ownership and front offices, there’s long been a dearth of non-White men, particularly in senior, hiring positions.
“Much more work is also necessary at the club level,” TIDES said in its 2022 review. “Of the nine grades for race at the team level, the only A grade or better was for assistant coaches at 40.4 percent people of color. MLB received a C for racial hiring for team managers, a B for Central Office, a C+ for senior administration, a B- for professional administration and a C in C-suite executives.
“MLB received a C- for racial hiring for vice presidents and a D+ for general managers and received an F for chief executive officers. MLB received an F for owners. The record for gender hiring at the club level is also poor with C grades for the senior and professional administration, a C- for C-Suite executives and F’s for vice presidents and CEO’s.”
In categories where there has been progress over time, the gains can appear minimal. A decade ago in 2012, the percentage of vice presidents in the sport was 86.2 percent white, per the report. This year, it’s 82.8 percent.
Although this year’s report came out in June, most of the MLB-provided data was current through Jan. 1, 2022, so it still included former Marlins CEO Derek Jeter in its CEO/president tabulation. That group was counted as 92.3 percent white. CEOs and presidents have been 100 percent white in 18 years dating to 1999, most recently in 2018.
The process has long appeared repetitive: baseball’s diversity troubles are raised publicly. MLB and the teams say they’re working on it. Rinse, repeat.
Back in 2015, MLB brought on the firm Korn Ferry to help better position women and minorities for jobs. That relationship didn’t last long — Korn Ferry was also handling the search for different teams’ general manager jobs, which created a conflict of interest. Korn Ferry, for example, helped bring David Stearns to the Milwaukee Brewers. MLB took its diversity efforts in-house from there.
Fast forward to August 2020, and the league sent a 333-word press release trumpeting the arrival of a new executive. Michele Meyer-Shipp was hired as MLB’s chief people and culture officer, arriving from the accounting firm KPMG. She came to baseball at a time when many businesses were projecting a new emphasis on diversity, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and protests across the country.
“I am very pleased that Michele is joining us to fill this vital role for Major League Baseball,” Manfred said in that press release. “Michele’s outstanding record of accomplishment will be a valuable addition to our senior leadership team, the hiring and development of our employees, and industry initiatives. We are excited for her to get started.”
A little more than a year later, in September 2021, Meyer-Shipp was out. There was no accompanying press release. When asked by The Athletic this summer why Meyer-Shipp was no longer at the league office, Manfred had a two-word response: “She resigned.”
An email this summer to Meyer-Shipp’s new organization seeking comment was not returned. In a statement to Sports Business Journal last year, she said she “decided to change course to pursue entrepreneurial and philanthropic endeavors.”
But members of MLB’s diversity committee who were not authorized to speak publicly said they were confused by the change, and felt left in the dark. They worried, as well, about what would happen to work she was supposed to be doing.
In November 2021, Manfred suggested that having people spearheading diversity initiatives without baseball operations experience could create a “credibility gap.” Although Manfred at the time did not refer Meyer-Shipp directly, Meyer-Shipp had not worked in the sport previously.
“We have, I think, a renewed focus on our front-office and on-field situation,” Manfred said at the time. “Mike Hill’s going to play a bigger role. Both Mike Hill and Tony Reagins. I think having two former general managers helping us trying to make progress on the baseball operations side is really good for us. I think we all know — I’ve certainly felt that over the years, those of us who have not functioned in that area exclusively, there’s a little credibility gap sometimes, and I got two great guys that I think can be really helpful on that topic.
“We’ve also asked Billy Bean to take a larger leadership role on the diversity issues. He’s done a fantastic job with our clubs. They have a ton of confidence in him, and I think they feel comfortable that he understands the game, most importantly, but club views and is very solicitous of those views.”
This year, Manfred elaborated further on how MLB planned to handle Meyer-Shipp’s old role: Bean, a senior vice president, is leading diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI. Vice president of social responsibility April Brown is handling community efforts, and a new hire this year, Regan White, contributes as senior vice president of human resources. Hill is a leader in on-field diversity matters.
“We think that the committee approach has allowed us to get better engagement across the organization, that was really our goal,” Manfred said.
DEI experts who spoke to The Athletic in the last year emphasized that change is rarely going to be facilitated by one or a handful of executives in a role like Meyer-Shipp’s anyway. Not alone. That, if MLB and the owners are serious about change, holistic programs have to be developed at the club level as well, including continuous training for hiring managers and mentorship for rising employees.
Asked if there was a connection between the lack of Black players on the field and the lack of diverse club management, Clark on Friday deferred to the teams and the league.
“You would have to ask the decision makers who are in those positions as to what is being discussed behind closed doors,” Clark said. “To the extent that we’ve got only a couple of Black coaches, to the extent that we only have a few Black front-office staff, it’s a conversation that I think you should have with those in those positions as to why that continues to be the case — when they 100 percent have the ability to control who they hire and who they don’t.”
Last year, The Athletic asked Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner if owners feel any urgency to hire more non-white men in leadership positions.
“Diversity obviously is crucial,” Steinbrenner said in November 2021. “I can look at our organization, honestly, I don’t think we’re where we need to be. And I think many corporations in America probably say the same thing. But we’ve done things like team up with the City University of New York, and a few other organizations that I think are really going to help us. Because in order to hire minorities, you need to have a good qualified pool of applicants, right? And those applicants are very sought after.
“And in New York with us, we’re competing against many corporations for the same pool of applicants, including Wall Street corporations. So that’s made it difficult. But I think some of the things that we just started doing six to 12 months ago are going to help us get a bigger pool of applicants.”
Said Manfred in June: “These issues are complicated for us, because we can control what we do here (at the central office). Clubs make their own hiring decisions. And the most important thing… is for us to provide support and programming for clubs, that delivers qualified individuals to make sure — diverse, qualified individuals — so that they can make the best decisions as to who they want to hire against the backdrop of our overall goal of increasing diversity.”
A lack of candidates, and the need to find more, has long been referenced by league officials when baseball’s diversity woes are brought up. But people in the sport who are not white men increasingly have little tolerance for that talk. They feel that the qualified candidates who already exist in the sport do not as readily receive opportunities.
On Friday, The Athletic pointed out that frustration to Manfred: that pipelines have been mentioned for years, and yet change still waits.
“What I would say to you about that: We’re going to continue to do the things that we believe are necessary to drive change,” Manfred said. “Do I wish, like players and front-office people that you refer to, that it was going a little faster? Yeah, I do. I do.”
(Top photo: Justin Edmonds-USA TODAY Sports)
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