“One Man’s Opinion” by Gordon Curvey

As a sports fan I am happy our Mariners here in Seattle and a few other teams drafted young African American players in the recent draft. This is good news and a start to get where baseball was in the 70’s and 80’s.

During those times, Major League Baseball had plenty of African American players young black kids could emulate and look up to. But things started to go downhill with a quickness starting at the start of this decade. And I mean quick when it comes to African American players. And it has never been great when it comes to African American managers.

Currently their are only TWO African American managers in baseball. Dave Roberts of the Dodgers and Dusty Baker with Washington.

That is all readers. Is this right? I say no. Heck in my opinion MLB should do away with Jackie Robinson Day in early April. That day is a freakin joke.

Mr. Robinson would not be happy if he saw the make up of baseball today. The number of African American players in the majors is only at a lowly 8%. Kenny Williams and Dave Stewart of Arizona are the only African American president/general managers in baseball. This is a big time problem in my strong opinion. This has to change.

Baker has said that similar to Black History Month, it needs to be more than just a day or month when it comes to the Jackie Robinson Day in MLB.  Baker said there should be more GM’s than Williams and Stewart and said their should be more than himself and Roberts as major league managers. And he is telling the flat out truth readers.

Where is Jerry Manual? Where is Jerry Royster? Where is Willie Randolph? Where is Davey Lopes? These fellas and more should be a manager right now. Heck our Seattle Mariners hired a manager with ZERO experience as a major league manager. Let me repeat…ZERO experience.

Here is few more names of African Americans who should be managers or hopefully be in the running for a job. How about Jacque Jones or Delino DeShields? And do not forget former Astro manager Bo Porter. And Terry Pendleton. So their are plenty of candidates that are African Americans so in my opinion as well as Dusty Baker, their should be more African American managers and GM’s. Let’s see what the future holds.