Hank Aaron lobbied for a black manager at the All-Star Game

Aaron was still an active player, but player-managers were not yet extinct, with several active players earning managerial jobs before the end of the 1970s. And Aaron was not happy with how Atlanta approached his opening.

“The situation could have been handled more tastefully,” Aaron told reporters at the 1974 game in Pittsburgh. “I think I deserved to be asked.”

After firing Eddie Mathews in late June, the Braves selected Clyde King as interim manager. Aaron, 40, had broken Babe Ruth’s home run record that season, which would be his last in Atlanta.

“Maybe they were afraid I would say yes, that I would like the job,” he said during the All-Star break. “And maybe I would have, just to get a break. There are a lot more qualified people out there than me, but you don’t see any of them getting a job.”

Aaron argued that the California Angels should have hired Frank Robinson when they had a managerial opening earlier that year; that position was given to Dick Williams. After the season, the Cleveland Indians named Robinson the sport’s first black manager, earning him a congratulatory telegram from President Gerald Ford. Robinson became the team’s player-manager at the start of the 1975 season.

In 1974, Aaron also mentioned his younger brother Tommie Aaron, who was managing Atlanta’s Class AA team in Savannah, as a candidate for the Braves’ vacant job. When asked about the younger Aaron, Atlanta general manager Eddie Robinson said, “Tommie is in a tight title race, and we think it would be unfair to take him out of Savannah at this time”—a comment that, according to the New York Times, became a “target of derision.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t want to sit in the minor leagues the rest of his life and rot,” Henry Aaron said. Aaron managed to stay in the Braves’ system for four more years, including two at Class AAA Richmond. He later became a coach for the Braves, but never got a chance to manage at the major league level. He died of leukemia in 1984 at age 45.

“I’m disappointed that the Braves management said I wasn’t interested in the manager’s job and that Tommie was too valuable in Savannah,” Aaron said. “I felt a little insulted, and I think it was an insult to all black people in baseball. … I don’t know what baseball is afraid of. I’ve heard so many bad stories about what management thinks that I wouldn’t want to repeat them.”

Aaron also rejected the argument that future black managers needed to gain experience in the minor leagues.

“I don’t remember Ted Williams going to the minor leagues,” he said, referring to the Hall of Fame slugger who got the Washington Senators job in 1969 with no managerial experience, “or Eddie Mathews, for that matter.”

Braves general manager Eddie Robinson said he was surprised Aaron was interested in the manager’s job. But he then gave a non-conforming answer when asked if the city of Atlanta was willing to accept a black manager.

“I don’t think I want to comment on that,” Robinson said.

In a column in the Boston Globe, Ray Fitzgerald supported Aaron’s criticism.

“News story: Whitey Lockman has resigned as Cubs manager,” Fitzgerald wrote. “His successor is Jim Marshall, a white, safe third-base coach. Ernie Banks, a 20-year superstar and black, has not been named.” He lumped the new Braves manager in with Lockman and Marshall, noting that his “undistinguished” stint as manager of the San Francisco Giants was unremarkable.

In two years with the Giants, King posted a .534 winning percentage; the Braves fired him in 1975 after he posted a .487 winning percentage over two seasons.

When Aaron made those comments, anger began to build over the lack of opportunities for black players after their careers ended. The issue was brought to the forefront in the early 1970s, but Jackie Robinson, who broke baseball’s color barrier in 1947, had long been an advocate for the cause, albeit with his eyes wide open.

“I feel there is as much resistance from baseball executives to the idea of ​​letting Negroes reach the top as there was in the early 1940s to the idea of ​​allowing Negroes to play,” he wrote in a 1965 column for the Chicago Defender, a black newspaper, nearly a decade after he retired as a player. Robinson said baseball owners were willing to “exploit the talent of Negro and other colored players,” but once their careers were over, they had nowhere to go in the sport. “Because the owners don’t have the courage or the decency to think in terms of the contributions these players have made to their fortunes, they simply let them go.”

And during the 1972 World Series, just nine days before his death, he used a ceremony honoring his historic debut to deliver a final, poignant plea:

“I’m extremely proud and happy to be here this afternoon, but I have to admit that I’ll be even happier and prouder when I look down at this line of third base coaches one day and see a black face leading a baseball team.”

The following year, Aaron took over for Robinson, his lifelong inspiration. Aaron had a reputation as a soft-spoken player, but he became more assertive on civil rights issues as his career progressed. In a 1973 profile, Time magazine described his evolution from “reluctant rookie baseball player to outspoken social critic” and noted his pessimistic response when asked for his advice to black kids on the path to sports.

“Until we can get some progress in the management, the front office and the coaching staff, there’s really no hope for young black people to play sports. We’re giants on the field for 20 years. Then they’re done with us,” he said, echoing Robinson’s criticism. “What baseball needs to do is give black people an opportunity to show their leadership ability off the field.”

Aaron, who died in 2021, paid tribute to Robinson’s efforts in a 1999 Time essay titled “Jackie Robinson: The Pioneer.”

“He campaigned for baseball to hire a black third base coach, and then a black manager,” Aaron wrote. “In 1969, he declined an invitation to play in a veterans’ game at Yankee Stadium to protest the lack of progress in that direction.”

By the time of the 1974 All-Star Game, the absence of black managers led to protests, with signs held outside the Hilton Hotel where Oakland Athletics superstar Reggie Jackson was honored as the All-Star’s top student. The Rev. Donald McIlvane of the Catholic Interracial Council, one of the four protest groups, told The New York Times that they wanted Pittsburgh visitors “to know that someone cares.” He said no baseball officials stopped to talk to them.

In 1987, early in his final major league season, Jackson wrote a Sports Illustrated cover story with Peter Gammons about racism in baseball and society, looking back on the frustrating early 1970s when there were no black managers.

“Fifteen years ago, I heard black players bitterly discuss baseball’s closed-door policy,” he wrote. “They accepted the fact that they would not have the same opportunities as white players after they retired. …

“What can be done?” he asked. “For starters, instead of complaining, blacks should constantly mention the people who are qualified to hold important positions in baseball.”

Last month, in an emotional interview with Fox Sports, Jackson detailed the racism he experienced as a young minor leaguer in Birmingham, Alabama, the site of the Negro Leagues tribute game that night. He credited white teammates like Rollie Fingers and Joe Rudi for keeping him out of fights with local racists.

“I would have been killed here, because I would have beaten somebody up,” Jackson said. “You would have seen me in an oak tree somewhere.”

Aaron himself faced a barrage of racism, including death threats, especially when he got closer to Ruth’s criminal record. After beating her in April 1974, he said, “I thank God it’s all over.”

“To some, he was more than a threat to Babe Ruth’s record; he was a black man about to break the most revered record by a white man,” Dave Anderson wrote in a Times column during the 1974 All-Star break. “Now,” Anderson added, “quietly but firmly, he has assumed a new role that involves his blackness, the determination to be the first black manager in the major leagues — if the Atlanta Braves management will give him the opportunity.”