ESPN’s Le Batard: Hispanics Need More Voices in MLB

ESPN Radio host Dan Le Batard reacted Thursday on ESPN’s “SportsCenter” to the lack of Hispanic managers around Major League Baseball after the firing of Atlanta Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez.

Le Batard said the lack of Hispanic managers around the league stems from white ownership around the league wanting to hire more people like them because of the “commonalities” they may share.

“What ends up happening here is because most of the owners are white; because most of the general managers are white you get a power imbalance where those people and, I am not accusing them of racism, even though so many people hear it this way, any time you discuss race you get a situation where those people tend to hire people who have commonalities with them, experiences, connection points and culturally we are more likely — what you would see happening right now in Major League Baseball is if all of the owners were Hispanic and all of the general managers were Hispanic then you would see a ton more Hispanic managers or if they were black you would see a lot more black managers and it would play that way,” Le Batard explained.

He continued, “All of the hiring power is in the hands of white people and so what ends up happening and, again this is not me alleging racism, what ends up happening is, all things being equal a guy says, ‘My best candidate, since this is subjective, I got more connection points here’ and that is how that happens and you get to a point where so few of them and you need to get more Hispanic guys in the pipeline as well.”

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