MLB needs more Black managers. Here's why it won't be me right now

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As is the case with any potential manager who has young children, the stress of considering a position that keeps you away from home is real. The significance of missing major milestones in their lives and the guilt of putting so much on your spouse makes even the greatest job a compromise.

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But as a Black father in 2021, this compromise becomes a deal-breaker for me.
How can I leave my children for extended periods of time when, every day, the poison of racism makes me fear for their safety?
The past year has been one of racial reckoning in America. But in the Black experience, much of what we saw was business as usual. It's been a year that has given us even more indisputable evidence of systemic racism, sometimes stark brutality caught on camera -- and most of my four kids, all under 13, are of an age to pay close attention.

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 knew what it meant to be a Black man in America well before I was a parent, before I found out that shoveling my own driveway involves risk, that buying a house brings the potential of lowering property values, that signing up my kids for an education involves countering forces that erode their self-esteem -- when schools are still largely segregated and security officers are summoned disproportionately to deal with Black students

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 a snowy day, I went out to shovel when an officer from another township parked across the street and eventually approached me. He rudely asked if I was shoveling "other people's driveways" to make "some extra bucks." I told him it was my home. When he finally left, after making a sarcastic remark, I stood there, feeling robbed of my dignity and my rights on my own property. It took 18 months of my life, countless meetings, community engagement and a few sit-downs with my family to achieve restorative justice. The "Glanville Law" was born, reminding officers that you cannot cross town lines and enforce the municipal laws of a different town. My kids were watching.

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e following year, I landed in Los Angeles after midnight, and when I went to get a cab with my white colleague, the cab driver saw me and told me to "go take the bus, it is $19." He refused to drive me to my hotel. When police did a sting to see how often this happened at LAX, the first night it happened to 30% of Black undercover riders. We're talking about one of the most diverse airports in the world.
My son noted a pattern: "Every time these bad things happen to you," he said, "it seems to be because of your color."

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Dusty Baker, has had an incredibly successful career by any standard, approaching 2,000 wins and managing against the tides as a Black leader. Yet, he's also lost jobs after making the playoffs and winning 90-plus games. In one case, he had to wait until a white candidate rejected a position because of a lowball offer. Most recently, jobless for two years after winning 97 games, one of the most iconic Black managers in history was asked to clean up the mess after a once-in-a-century scandal in Houston. Being Black, you pay attention to how your legacy representatives are treated. Especially when more Dusty Bakers are needed in the game -- not fewer.

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The recent events in Washington, D.C., only crystallized what I already knew, that our country has two competing stories, and at the center of those stories is power and race.

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