RetroSimba

Bill White, a leader on and off the field as a Cardinals player, was a natural to take those skills to the executive level.

On Feb. 3, 1989, White was named president of the National League, succeeding Bart Giamatti, who became commissioner of baseball.

Two years after Dodgers executive Al Campanis told a national television audience blacks lacked the necessities for management, White became the highest-ranking African-American sports official in the United States and the first black to head a major professional sports league.

White’s hiring came 42 years after Jackie Robinson integrated the major leagues as a player for the 1947 Dodgers. In 1989, White became leader of a league with no black managers and no black general managers. Frank Robinson of the American League Orioles was the only black manager in February 1989 and Hank Aaron, a vice president of the National League Braves, was the only black executive of a major-league club.

“I don’t think they could have found anyone more qualified than Bill White,” Aaron said to the Associated Press.

Success in St. Louis

White played 13 seasons in the National League for the Giants (1956 and 1958), Cardinals (1959-65 and 1969) and Phillies (1966-68). With the Cardinals, White hit 20 or more home runs in five consecutive seasons and had more than 100 RBI three years in a row. In 1964, when the Cardinals were World Series champions, White batted .303 with 191 hits. As a first baseman, he won the Gold Glove Award seven times, including six with St. Louis, and he was an all-star in five of his Cardinals seasons.

In 1961, White successfully led an effort to end segregation of players at spring training in Florida.

“When Bill was first with the Cardinals, blacks could not stay in the same hotel as whites,” teammate Tim McCarver said. “Bill spoke up and said it was wrong. The next season, blacks were in the same hotel as the whites.”

Cardinals general manager Bing Devine reacquired White from the Phillies in 1969 and wanted him to learn to be a manager. White, however, wasn’t interested. “I didn’t want to manage,” White told me in 2011. “I didn’t want to try to tell 25 other guys how to play the game. I’d rather do something where the success depends on me, not on other people.”

White became a Yankees broadcaster in 1971 and was in that role when he got a surprise call from Dodgers executive Peter O’Malley in 1988.

Courting a candidate

O’Malley told White a search committee wanted to interview him for the National League president job. White replied, “Thanks, but I’m not interested.”

A week later, O’Malley called again, White recalled in his 2011 book “Uppity,” and said the committee still wanted to interview him.

“I thought it wouldn’t hurt to meet with them, even though I still wasn’t interested in actually taking the job,” White said.

White was interviewed in New York by the committee of O’Malley, Giamatti, retired National League president Chub Feeney and executives William Bartholomay of the Braves and Fred Wilpon of the Mets.

“My first reaction was, ‘Are these people serious?’ ” White said. “In meeting the people, I found out they were dead serious. Once I found that out, we went forward.”

The finalists were White and Simon Gourdine, director of labor relations for the Metropolitan Transit Authority in New York and former NBA deputy commissioner.

The committee recommended White to the 12 National League team owners, who unanimously approved him and awarded a four-year contract.

White said he accepted because “it was a challenge, and throughout my life, a challenge has been something that is hard for me to resist.”

Stellar reputation

Reaction to White’s hiring was overwhelmingly positive.

Bob Broeg of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch said the National League would find White to be “a most responsible as well as respectable president.”

Frank Dolson of the Philadelphia Inquirer called White “a man of character, a man of conviction, a man of determination.”

“Some men have to grow into a job; in this case, the job will become bigger simply because of the man occupying the office,” Dolson wrote.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Al Campanis sent a congratulatory telegram to White and hailed him as “articulate, intelligent and a gentleman who has the capability to become an outstanding league president.”

Lou Brock, White’s teammate with the Cardinals, said, “This is a great step, almost equal to Jackie Robinson’s entry into baseball.”

Another Cardinals teammate, Bob Gibson, said, “There are a lot of Archie Bunkers in the world that never really have experienced just being in the same room with a (black) person. The more jobs that are gotten, acquired, the more you are going to be able to dispel the myths that have been going on for years.”

White fully understood the significance of being the first African-American to hold the position but he downplayed the racial aspect because he wanted to be judged on skills, not skin color.

“If I didn’t think I could do the job, I would have been foolish to take it out of some historic significance,” White said.

Red tape

White said he wanted to improve relations between players and umpires and between players and club owners.

Soon after he started, White had to deal with the Pete Rose betting scandal and later with Reds owner Marge Schott, who got suspended for making insensitive comments.

Among White’s successes were his role in guiding expansion of the league into Denver and Miami, keeping the Giants from leaving San Francisco and reestablishing authority of the league president over the umpires union.

White retired in 1994 after some of the team owners he’d supported failed to back his recommendations.

“I was tired of the politics, tired of the behind-the-scenes maneuverings, tired of the lies,” White said in “Uppity.”

In his 1994 book “Stranger to the Game,” Gibson said White confided to him the difficulties he faced as league president.

“White has been frustrated by his inability to push through change and otherwise get things done,” said Gibson. “When he was telling me this over drinks one night and explaining why he felt compelled to resign his position, I said, ‘Why don’t you just stay in it for the money?’ He replied that he couldn’t do that. I said, ‘Hell, I can. Give the job to me.’ In reality, though, I couldn’t work under those conditions any more than Bill could.”