Ex-manager's Comments Upset Audience (Herzog on reverse discrimination in MLB)

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Former manager Whitey Herzog said he believes major league baseball is sometimes guilty of reverse racism when it comes to hiring for management jobs, a newspaper reported Saturday.

"I do think that there's a lot of capable minorities," Herzog said Friday at the podium of the annual Iowa Cubs FanFest luncheon, The Des Moines Register reported.

"But I do think today, the people that are really getting it stuck to them are guys like this guy over here because he isn't a minority," Herzog was quoted as saying. The reference was to Iowa Cubs manager, Bruce Kimm, who is white.

Herzog, who led the St. Louis Cardinals to the 1982 World Series championship, said he hopes Kimm someday can manage a big league team.

"And the reason I say that: We are so intent in our country today that we must do some things strictly opposite of what our country was built upon," Herzog was quoted as saying. "When our country was built, the best man always got the job. The most capable person was the guy. It didn't make any difference what color he was, it didn't make any difference if he was a minority."

Herzog did not immediately return a phone message left at his home Saturday by The Associated Press.

Rich Levin, a spokesman for commissioner Bud Selig, said he has never heard complaints that baseball is involved in reverse racism.

"We try to be as inclusive as possible. We are very concerned about equal opportunity," Levin said. "We want to make sure that minorities have equal access."

Currently, six of 29 major league managers are minorities. The Florida Marlins do not have a manager. There is one black general manager, Ken Williams of the Chicago White Sox.

Many audience members, including Iowa Cubs majority owner Michael Gartner, were upset by Herzog's comments, the Register reported.

"It was embarrassing," Gartner was quoted as saying. "It's not consistent with our own beliefs and baseball's beliefs, and I apologize to those people who were offended."

David Chavez, president of Colorado Springs-based Pro Sports MVP, which set up Herzog's appearance, has known the 70-year-old Herzog for 10 years and thinks he was misinterpreted.

"He's a standup guy and a gentleman in the truest sense," he said. "I think he miscommunicated what he was trying to say.

"At the end of the speech, I just think he was just trying to pull it together," Chavez said. "He was trying to say baseball has moved in the right direction. But at the same time, there's still a lot of good people out there."

Whitey told the truth. But the truth was "insensitive". And everybody's "upset" by the truth.

"We want to make sure that minorities have equal access."

And all Whitey was asking the very same thing for the majority.

What in the world is so offensive about his comments? Someone can disagree. But, it is racists to falsely accuse Herzog of racism. He has an honest point of view and probably has a lot of evidence to back it up. I hope he doesn't apologize.

Whitey's got a point when he's talking about reverse discrimination, but he's really shooting himself in the foot when he makes dumb comments like the above. To suggest that our country was built strictly on merit, and that skin color (or gender) weren't factored in, is patently absurd to the point of making him sound like a racist. Plus, if he really wants to comment on the racial situation, he'd be better off changing his name to something other than "Whitey."

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