Retired catcher Bengie Molina won two Gold Glove awards, played on three World Series teams and, of course, is an older brother of St. Louis Cardinals star Yadier Molina.
For some reason he is out of baseball this season, even though he is a former assistant batting coach for the Cardinals and first-base coach for the Texas Rangers, a team he once played for.
Asked earlier this season, “Should there be more Hispanic managers?” he swiftly replied, “Of course, man.”
He listed Jose Oquendo, Sandy Alomar Jr., Joey Cora and Edwin Rodriguez as qualified candidates – also himself.
Oquendo, the Cardinals’ loyal, longtime third-base coach, was an obvious candidate to replace Tony La Russa when he retired after the 2011 championship season. The front office went with Mike Matheny, who had never coached or managed in the Majors.
Adrian Burgos Jr., of the Sporting News recently wrote, “In Oquendo’s case, his turning from the next Latino likely to be a team manager into a candidate who has been bypassed so many times (even by the Cardinals) that he is now tainted by the notion that ‘since the Cardinals would not hire him, there must be something wrong with Oquendo.’”
If that is correct, it is shameful. But there is good news. Oquendo’s resume is being given a boost by the sorry play in St. Louis.
If Cardinals fans didn’t realize how important Oquendo is to the Cardinals, they (me included) now do.
Something is missing from the 2016 Redbirds. The Cardinal Way is way out of sight. Poor defense, mad-cap base-running, mental errors on the field and in the batter’s box appear almost every game.
Add a sometimes delusional Matheny, and you get a team that was just two games over .500 after being swept by the Rangers last weekend.
“I don’t care what you say. I know we have a good team,” he said following his team’s 5-4 loss to the Rangers on Sunday.
The Cardinals also found themselves 12-and-a-half games behind the rampaging Cubs as the teams began a three-game series in Wrigley Field on Monday night.
The search is on for what the problem is with this team. The answer becomes more obvious with each lackluster performance. It’s Oquendo.
What isn’t obvious is why Oquendo chose to be absent from the team following a complicated knee surgery last spring. He couldn’t be the hands-on, on-field coach he has been in the past, but he certainly could be an additional bench coach for the at-times overmatched Matheny.
Is he upset that he didn’t get the Cards’ job in 2012? Is he fed up with Matheny? We don’t know.
We do know that he is in Florida, not St. Louis. We do know the Cardinals are one-third of the way through the season and doing nothing. There is a relationship between the two, folks. Do whatever it takes to convince Oquendo to return to the team by the All-Star Break or possibly not come close to a wild-card playoff berth.
In the meantime, MLB has zero Hispanic managers and Oquendo should be a prime candidate to get his first managerial title. My choice for him would be the floundering Chicago White Sox. They have some talent and they have a no-experience-when-hired manager in Robin Ventura.
Matheny has found more success than Ventura, but he inherited a world champion team stocked with veteran players and leadership. That was then, this is now.
Again, I’m late to the knowledge party on Oquendo’s true value. I realize it now, and GM John Mozeliak and Cards’ owners should also.
Oquendo said in late May, “I’m just a telephone call away” from talking with players who might need a “kick in the butt.”
Jose, the entire team and manager need that kick in the butt.
My advice to management? Do whatever it takes to convince Oquendo to return to the team by the All-Star Break or prepare to not make the playoffs.
What’s the ‘Matter’ with him?
The University of Missouri football team will receive the Stuart Scott ENSPIRE Award on July 12 at ESPN’s second annual Sports Humanitarian of the Year Awards in Los Angeles.
“Racial tensions were becoming increasingly strained at the University of Missouri last fall,” ESPN said in a statement.
“Frustrations gave rise to protests – one of the most notable coming when a student at the school began a hunger strike. Students were demanding action, and the Mizzou Tigers football team stepped in and announced that they would boycott their upcoming game unless changes were made.
“The players took a huge risk – their scholarships could have been revoked and their futures hung in the balance. But their actions indicated it was a risk worth taking to help bring action to this critical issue.”
Scott, one of ESPN’s most popular SportsCenter anchors and host of its NBA coverage, died last year after a lengthy and heroic battle with cancer.
David Matter, Post-Dispatch Mizzou sports beat writer, covered this story and wrote a whopping 163 words before mentioning the award.
It was more important to him to editorialize, saying, “A boycott that lasted less than 48 hours will reverberate on campus for countless years as the university, the athletics department and football program work to recover from the polarizing event that triggered months of rhetoric in the state legislature, helped cripple campus finances and turned off legions of fans.”
Harbaugh not happy with NCAA
Add Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh to the mounting number of critics taking on the NCAA and its ridiculous rules and regulations.
Harbaugh is upset that the NCAA is taking a dim view of satellite football camps that are sponsored by universities far from respective campuses. What makes Harbaugh’s complaints important is the fact he feels race is playing a role.
This isn’t about fairness, in Harbaugh’s mind – it’s about football receiving far more attention because far more of its players are black.
“Football gets the majority of the scrutiny and the rules that are intended to hurt the student-athlete and it makes no sense,” Harbaugh told ESPN.com.
“That’s why I’m pointing this out, because some of these other sports aren’t getting it. Let’s take lacrosse for example. White sport, rising, affluent sport. Recruit ’em in the eighth grade, dark period for a couple days in August, and it’s a totally different situation.”
Them’s fighting words, Jim. Better be careful.
Alvin A. Reid is a panelist on the Nine Network program, Donnybrook and appears on ABC’s The Allman Report and several sports radio shows. His Twitter handle is #aareid1
