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In the last 20 years, my team, the Giants, has had two black managers, numerous black coaches, a Korean coach, and even a gerbil coach (Don Zimmer).

I think Dusty Baker is second after Bobby Cox in NL magerial seniority now.

Yeah, we in Boston know the Gerbil well! I happen to think that the NFL and MLB, the only leagues I really follow, are doing a pretty good job at eliminating the reality of straight-up prejudice in upper-level hiring. The success of Dusty Baker in MLB and Tony Dungy in the NFL, just to name two, is a pretty good indication that there is no widespread bias in hiring. Even my beloved Sox, well known as the last bastion of MLB racism, pursued Felipe Alou hard this year. But it's hard to deny that on a large scale, the previous bias against blacks (dating back only 40 years, minimum) hurts their ability to to network their way into the top-level jobs even today. That's not bias, that's history. And the fix isn't mandatory hiring, but there's got to be work done, and it doesn't have to be a huge deal to talk about it. That's all I'm saying.

And speaking of the "gerbil" (no, I wasn't going to mention Richard Gere), has anyone heard from Bill "Spaceman" Lee?

One imagines he's out on his farm somewhere in Mexico sitting on his front porch working on a bong the size of a saxophone partially obscured by a 10,000 foot plume of smoke.

In the last 20 years, my team, the Giants, has had two black managers, numerous black coaches, a Korean coach, and even a gerbil coach (Don Zimmer).

Don't you be dissing Zim -- what are you, Bill (Spaceman) Lee in disguise?