At this year’s All-Star Game, five of the American League starters and three of the National League starters were either born in Latin America or were children of Latin Americans.
It made sense given the strong representation of Latino players in MLB, currently at 28.5 percent, according to the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport.
But there is not a similar correlation between the amount of Latino players and Latino managers.
With Fredi Gonzalez fired from the Braves in May this season, it left MLB without a Hispanic manager for the first time since 1991. With only two managers of color (Dusty Baker, who is African-American with the Nationals, and Dave Roberts, who is black and Japanese, with the Dodgers), that highlights a significant drop from the peak of 10 minority managers in 2002 and 2009.
“I don’t know if necessarily it’s is bias one way or the other,” said Rick Renteria, who was the Cubs manager in 2014 and now works as a bench coach for the White Sox. “Hopefully the numbers aren’t necessarily an indication of being limited in how they view us. We’re all pretty intelligent people.”
Commissioner Rob Manfred told reporters earlier in the season that “the absence of a Latino manager is glaring,” but he also reminded them that there are only 30 manager jobs and there is little turnover each season.
The disparity isn’t a sudden trend.
Latino players aren’t new on the MLB scene, having represented at least 20 percent of the player pool since 1996, according to research by baseball historians Mark Armour and Dan Leavitt. Yet there have only ever been 15 Latino managers in MLB history.
In 1969, Cuban-born Preston Gomez became the first manager of Latino descent born outside the U.S. when he was named manager of the San Diego Padres. (Miguel Gonzalez, also born in Cuba, had served as an interim manager with the St. Louis Cardinals for 16 games in 1938 and another 6 games in 1940. Al Lopez, who managed the Cleveland Indians from 1951-1956 and the White Sox from 1957-65 and for parts of the 1968 and ’69 seasons, was of Latino descent but born in Tampa, Fla.)
Successful Latino managers such as Lou Piniella, Felipe Alou and Ozzie Guillen have followed. Manny Acta was recently a manager with the Nationals and Indians, and he is now a Mariners third base coach.
Indians’ first base coach Sandy Alomar Jr., Cubs’ bench coach Dave Martinez and former big league players Alex and Joey Cora are often mentioned as strong potential candidates for manager jobs.
“What’s so scary about it the cycle of the downward trend of Latino managers is it’s a younger generation of general managers who are not hiring Latinos,” said Adrian Burgos, a history professor at the University of Illinois, who has written about Latinos in baseball. “How is that going to change? It’s not the old guard. The new guys are doing it too.”
Al Avila of the Tigers is the only Latino general manager.
In January, MLB hired Tyrone Brooks to head the new Front Office and Field Staff Diversity Pipeline Program aimed to create more administrative diversity. The Players Association has asked for continuing education courses including analytics and statistics to help prepare them for future jobs.
But the most well-known effort to increase diversity was the 1999 “Selig Rule,” which requires clubs to consider minority candidates for top-level jobs including manager positions in hopes of diversifying the league. Critics argue that the rule has not been effective.
In 2015, for example, the Brewers hired Craig Counsell as their new manager just one day after firing Ron Roenicke. Counsell was one among a wave of ex-players, such as Tigers’ Brad Ausmus and Cardinals’ Mike Matheny, who were hired despite no previous coaching experience, seemingly getting a fast-track from a special assistant role in the front office to a coaching gig.
Burgos had a suggestion to alter the rule.
“To put some bite into the Selig rule, say, ‘OK, during international signing month you go out and primarily sign Latino players. But you lose it if you don’t go through a fair (hiring) process,'” he said. “‘If you skirt the Selig rule, we’ll cut it in half. That’s a way for teams to get serious about this.”
Tony Reagins, the former Angels general manager who is African-American, said he would like to see more pathways created for people of color similar to what he experienced.
“The access to the higher levels of the game is a challenge because there aren’t a lot of individuals of color in high profile positions,” said Reagins, who is now senior vice president for MLB’s youth programs. “People tend to hire people that they’re familiar with and comfortable with. If they don’t know your background, well …”
White Sox catch Alex Avila is a second-generation Cuban-American, the son of Tigers’ Al Avila and the grandson of Ralph Avila who revolutionized scouting in the Dominican Republic as a Dodgers assistant. He spent part of his summers at the baseball academies with his grandfather.
He said many have told him he has the skills to one day become a manager.
But Alex Avila does not see the current lack of Latin representation in the sport as a concern.
“To be completely honest, I never thought about it that way,” he said. “Why aren’t there more Latin mangers or why aren’t there more Latin general managers? I always looked at it as well if he’s right for the job, if they think he’s going to do a good job and a good resume, he’s going to get hired.”
Renteria said he hopes to see more doors open to qualified Latino candidates.
“I think with time and more people getting in the game and elevated to high positions there we will see more,” he said. “There are (only) so many things we can control. Opening doors and things of that nature has more to do with how others view us.”
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Editor’s note: This story contains corrected material, published Sept. 27, 2016.
