Chicago Cubs Hire a White Manager

Last week, Chicago Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein flew down to Pensacola, Florida, and sat in an RV Park for the first time in his 40-year-old life to have a chat with Joe Maddon and his wife, Jaye. Along with Cubs general manager Jed Hoyer, he put down four lawn chairs in front of an ocean view and sealed the deal with Maddon to become a Cub, less than two weeks after Maddon had opted out of his contract with the Tampa Rays.

Epstein & Co. already knew exactly who they wanted to replace Rick Renteria when they told the now former Chicago Cubs manager that his services would no longer be required. The way the Cubs approached Maddon's hiring—no different from how front offices at most clubs go after candidates who they've targeted for open roles—makes a complete mockery of the Selig Rule and its "mandatory" minority consideration component.

In 1999, three years before the NFL introduced its own Rooney Rule for minority hirings, commissioner Bud Selig sent a memo to all his teams, trying to make them realize that there's no point "recycling" white men. What came to be known as the Selig Rule required every club to consider minority candidates "for all general manager, assistant general manager, field manager, director of player development and director of scouting positions." He also asked clubs to provide him a list of their openings and a list of candidates, including minority candidates, that would be interviewed for those positions.

But take a look around and the toothlessness of that memo becomes apparent. Renteria, who did as good a job as he could with a core group of young players in Chicago, was one of only three minority managers in Major League Baseball at the time of his firing, along with Fredi Gonzalez of the Atlanta Braves and Lloyd McClendon of the Seattle Mariners.

Now in his last year as commissioner, Selig expressed concern over the lack of minority managers in the league when the Houston Astros fired Bo Porter and Ron Washington resigned from the Texas Rangers in September. But apart from encouraging teams to do what he says is fair, Selig doesn't have a great record when it comes to giving his rule some spine or even making it a real, set-in-stone mandate.

When the Dodgers hired Joe Torre as their manager in 2007, they interviewed only two white men: Torre and Joe Girardi. Selig let them hire Torre without interviewing a minority candidate because of their "strong track record on minority hirings." After moving to Los Angeles, the Dodgers had hired seven managers before Torre—Walter Alston, Tommy Lasorda, Bill Russell, Glenn Hoffman, Davey Johnson, Jim Tracy, and Grady Little. All white men. So much for a great track record.

In Maddon's case, the Cubs could argue that the position wasn't really an opening for which they were searching. They saw Maddon was a free agent and decided to jump on that opportunity. "I had no choice but to do it… And I wouldn't have been doing my job if we didn't make that decision," Epstein said. But that only lays bare the futility of having the Selig Rule if teams can counter with, 'Hey, he's available.' It's just a show then of how little baseball cares to change the old boys club that would rather go on hiring white men.