ABSTRACT
Los Angeles Dodgers General Manager A1 Campanis took the “Nightline” audience by surprise in spring 1987 when he stated that blacks lack the “necessities” to manage a major league baseball team. The incredulous host, Ted Koppel, provided Campanis with ample opportunities to retract this point, but he declined to substantially modify it. Here was an administrator outwardly expressing a notion many presumed to have disappeared, if not with slavery, then sometime following the civil rights gains of the 1960s and the ensuing affirmative action programs established across the nation. The realization that many prominent sports personalities–as well as individuals in many walks of life–harbored racial bias of one form or another was dramatically reinforced when oddsmaker and television sports analyst Jimmy “the Greek” Snyder was quoted passing along racial slurs in a public restaurant.
