Seattle fired Lloyd McClendon, leaving MLB with a noticeable lack of African American managers.
Seattle fired manager Lloyd McClendon on Oct. 9. With a brand-new general manager in Jerry Dipoto and a disappointing 76–86 record in 2015, McClendon’s dismissal was by no means a surprise. But with McClendon out, baseball is left with no black managers. While Major League Baseball boasted a record 10 managers of color in 2009, Fredi González of the Atlanta Braves is now the lone non-white skipper heading into the 2015 offseason.
Almost 70 years after Jackie Robinson broke the baseball color barrier, there are as many black managers currently employed by MLB teams as there were when Jackie first took the field on Apr.