No More Fear of Black Commissioner?

An astute, experienced and respected baseball executive was asked a few years back just when he believed Major League Baseballl would be ready for commissioner who was not a white man. “When will America be ready?” he responded. “I think someone will come along who has the ability to make you forget gender or color. That person’s ability will transcend whatever insecurity the group has.

“I believe the times and the person,” he continued, “will dictate that.” Earlier this month, baseball commissioner Bud Selig announced he will end his reign as the game’s top executive when his contract expires in 2009. By then, America just might have an African-American president, given the gushing white folks are doing over Barack Obama, the handsome, intelligent senator from Illinois.

So whether Obama wins or not (you can bet he’s going to run), perhaps the “times” will finally be right for a non-white commissioner. As for the “person,” like Obama, the ideal candidate has not announced he’s in the race. He’s way too smart for that. Instead he’s just been doing his job -- quietly, effectively and, increasingly, more visibly.

Doing it so well his colleagues do not dwell on his color. Doing it so well he has already transcended any insecurities they might harbor. In fact, the person who is ideally suited -- and situated -- to become the first African-American commissioner in sports history is the same person who uttered the aforementioned quote: Astute, experienced and respected baseball executive Jimmie Lee Solomon. Solomon is Baseball’s executive vice president of baseball operations, which essentially means he oversees just about everything you can think of that does not involve a bat or glove.

He manages on-field discipline, security and facilities management, minor-league, major-league and international operations, scouting and umpiring. He’s been in baseball since 1991 when he was lured from a Washington, D.C. law firm to run MLB’s minor-leagues. He rebuilt the frayed relationship between baseball and its minor leagues, created the Futures Game to highlight minor-league talent during the All-Star Weekend and oversaw the development and execution of the World Baseball Classic.

This season he was most visible as the MLB executive charged with deciding play/no-play during what may have been the soggiest World Series ever. He’s also been a quiet guardian of the game’s ethics during the Boston Red Sox’s high-profile dance with Daisuke Matsuzaka, the coveted Japanese pitcher. Interestingly, when rumors swirled last month hinting the Sox might be trying to circumvent the complex process of signing the pitcher by making a deal with Matsuzaka’s Japanese team that would float more cash to the player, it was not baseball’s commissioner who was quoted extensively and emphatically, but Solomon. “There are no side deals,” he said. “Everybody’s been assured that’s not allowed, and everybody’s been aware of the rules.”

Three years ago, not long before he was promoted to his current position, I led a team at Sports Illustrated that created the magazine’s inaugural list of The 101 Most Influential Minorities in Sports. Solomon was ranked No. 9. The following year, he crept upwards to No. 7 (Both years he was the highest-ranked sports executive).

The top editors killed the list after two years, but if it were being created today it would be hard to argue ranking Solomon much lower than No. 2, behind that Tiger guy. Sure there are non-white team owners (Arturo Moreno of the Los Angeles Angels and Bob Johnson, the Charlotte Bobcats owner), superstars who sell million of licensed goods (Yao Ming and LeBron James), a union head (the NFL’s Gene Upshaw) and a key NFL exec (Executive VP Harold Henderson). But at this moment, at this “time,” Solomon is the most influential non-jock in sports who’s not a white man. And he’s right up there with them, as well.

In announcing Soloman’s promotion in 2005, Selig said: “Major League Baseball is fortunate to have a man of Jimmie Lee’s experience intellect and dedication already on board to handle such a complex position…I have great confidence that he will be an enormous success in this key position.” The man Solomon replaced, respected, long-time baseball man Sandy Alderson, said simply: “He’ll do a terrific job.”

That he has, but listen to this: He’s done that terrific job, while also being 100 percent “brother.” He’s been vocal and passionate about the sport’s dearth of African-American players. And he’s brought two major Afro-centric initiatives to life: the MLB Urban Youth Academy in Compton, California, and the just-announced Civil Rights Game, which will be played in March in Memphis, where Rev. Martin Luther King was assassinated. Almost miraculously, he’s done all this without diminishing his status with his baseball peers or constituents.

That’s no easy feat, as any African-American in corporate America can attest. Suggest or promote any new project, process or product aimed at people of color and you’ll be labeled “black” rather than simply someone with a new idea or approach. One that might actually help your company. Thankfully, that has not happened to Solomon. Baseball has seemingly embraced his passions without “ghettoizing” him. We should all be so fortunate. Like many of us, Solomon a child of the Civil Rights movement. He grew up in rural Texas, and is a classic American success story.

He attended Dartmouth and later obtained a law degree from Harvard. On the first occasion we had to share stories, a few years ago, we found our paths to be similar. I grew up working in my late father’s drug store, learning the lessons diligence, excellence and the importance sharing kindness with everyone. Solomon grew up working on his dad’s farm, often rising before dawn to take care of animals and mend whatever needed mending. He worked so hard, Solomon often says, that he learned: a) he did not want to work on a farm and, from watching his dad toil every day, and: b) preparation is the key to success. “If you’re prepared,” he told Ebony magazine last year, “when the call comes, you’ll always be ready.”

When Selig announced he’d be leaving the only name that surfaced as a successor was Andy MacPhail, a former team executive with the Minnesota Twins and Chicago Cubs. He resigned in October after 12 seasons as CEO of the Cubs after failing to lead the team to a World Series. “I was unable to get the job done,” he admitted. [To be fair, MacPhail guided the Twins to World Series titles ion 1987 and 1991.] It was probably best that no one mentioned Solomon. Like the 2008 presidential election, much can happen between now and then. In both instances the behind-the-scenes drama has just begun.

No matter what happens during the next three years, baseball will be faced with two distinct paths. MacPhail is a solid baseball man, the son of form American League president Lee MacPhail, the grandson of Larry MacPhail, who won a National League title as owner of the Brooklyn Dodges in 1941 -- the segregated Brooklyn Dodgers -- and a World Series as owner of the New York Yankees in 1947. The elder MacPhails are the only father-son duo to be elected to Baseball’s Hall of Fame.

That is one path.

The other will lead towards Jimmie Lee Solomon, another baseball man. But one whose father would have never been given the opportunity to run a major-league baseball team; whose grand-father could not have dreamed, not in his wildest dream, of owning one. And yet Jimmie Lee, like many “firsts” among his generation, has worked hard enough to make his predecessors proud -- hard enough and smart enough and effective enough be baseball’s next commissioner.

He’s the right “person” at the right “time,” Now let’s see if in three years, baseball makes the right decision.