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 WILLIE RANDOLPH ...Was he too placid when Mets were behind? |
Was race behind firing of Willie Randolph?
of TheColumnists.com
When Willie Randolph
was named manager of the New York Mets on November 4, 2004, he
became the first African American to lead a New York baseball
team.
Now, 61 years after Jackie Robinson integrated baseball as a
member of the Brooklyn Dodgers, he becomes the first African
American New York baseball manager to be fired.
Did race matter? Is Barack Obama paying attention?
When Randolph got the job, much was made over the fact that he
was as much of a ground breaker in the New York racial baseball
scene as Robinson was as a player more than six decades earlier.
“This will really be news,” Randolph said in 2004,
“when there is no mention of race.”
If Obama becomes President of the United States, will there be
a single story written that day or a newscast on radio and television
that fails to mention that he is an African American?
I know John McCain is a third generation Naval officer but I
have no idea whether he is Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Lutheran,
Methodist, Episcopalian, Baptist or atheist.
Does it matter?
Obama is truly an African American, the modern term for persons
with dark skin after graduation from colored, Negro or black
over the last half century. His father is African and his mother
is American. That makes him African American in any definition.
How many persons of color in the U.S. can truly be described
as African American?
When one’s parentage goes back four, five or six generations
in the U.S. it would be hardly logical to be described as African
American.
If that description was accurate the rest of us should be called
English American, French American, German American (the largest
U.S. national ethnic group), Polish American, Russian American,
Canadian American etc. etc.
Willie Randolph was born in Holly Hill, South Carolina, the fourth
or fifth generation of Randolphs born in the United States. His
parents moved to the Brownsville section of Brooklyn when Randolph
was four years old as they sort better economic opportunity.
He grew up in Brooklyn, starred at Samuel J. Tilden High School
in Brooklyn, signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1972, was
traded to the Yankees in December of 1975 (only 20 years after
the Yankees had promoted Elston Howard from the minor leagues
as their first African American player) and spent 13 productive
years as a Yankee.
It is my guess that he was never popular with Mets fans as a
manager, not for his African American heritage as for his Yankee
heritage.
After his playing career ended with one season as a Met he spent
11 more seasons as a Yankee coach.
He got close to leading the Mets to a pennant in 2006 but lost
the final playoff game to the Cardinals and was the skipper last
year when the Mets
blew a seven game lead with 17 games to go, the worst choke in
baseball history.
Rumors circulated early this year that Randolph might be fired.
That’s the way it goes in baseball when you blow a pennant
one year and can’t seem to get started the next year.
It has happened to about every manager in history from Casey
Stengel to Billy Martin.
Several weeks ago Randolph was discussing his tenuous managerial
status with a reporter when he suggested that he was under more
pressure and was covered differently than other managers in shaky
situations because of his race.
He even said the cable television station covering the New York
Mets games worked overtime in showing him in embarrassing situations,
either not emoting when his team went ahead or being too placid
when his team was behind.
Randolph stood up on the team’s bench most of the time during
a game with little animation. The manager he worked for with
the Yankees in the Bronx, Joe Torre, sat down most of the time
during a game with little animation.
Using race as a defensive weapon just about did Randolph in.
I go back more than 30 years with Randolph from his days as a
sparkling Yankee second baseman. He stayed out of most of the
furor around the volatile Yankees in those days of the “Bronx
is Burning” character of the team or the Sparky Lyle named
“Bronx Zoo.”
He just played well and mostly kept his mouth shut.
As a Polish American with a little summer darkened white skin,
I don’t think Randolph’s race was any factor in his
firing.
Two things did him in. Number one, he didn’t win. Number
two, he was too identified as a Yankee by the Mets Shea stadium
crowd.
Let’s just see how that true African American Barack Obama
does in November.
©2008 by Maury Allen. The Maury Allen
caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. The photo is courtesy
of Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia. This column first posted
June 23, 2008.
You can comment on this column online. Please address your message to either "The Editors" or Maury Allen. To send an email, click here and don't forget to mention Maury's name: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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