Atlanta Braves history: Bill Lucas becomes baseball’s first Black GM
By Fred Owens
In 1976, the Atlanta Braves followed in the footsteps of the Dodgers and Orioles in making baseball history, yet the moment seems lost.
William DeVaughn – Bill – Lucas graduated from Florida A&M, served in the Army then played in the Milwaukee Braves minor league system from 1957 through 1962. He joined the club’s front office staff in 1965 as they prepared to move to Atlanta.
Lucas became head of player development in 1967 and moved up to farm director in 1972. The team wasn’t good in those days, and in March of 1976, Ted turner fired his GM Eddie Robinson and took the title of GM himself.
It wasn’t until September 19 that Turner officially named Lucas vice president of player personnel and gave him all of the duties of a GM. However, Turner kept the GM title himself, perhaps because he felt it made Lucas’s new job easier.
While this sounds like typical in-house hiring, Turner new that there was one significant difference that might make it hard to deal with a few GMs: Lucas was Black.
As chronicled in The Atlantic, Turner’s choice of Lucas made him the first African-American to run a Major League team.
"Nearly three decades after Jackie Robinson had become the first black player in the modern Major Leagues and two years after Frank Robinson had become the first black on-field manager, Lucas had shattered another barrier."
While the public didn’t know Bill Lucas very well, those within the Atlanta Braves organization knew and respected their new leader.
Bobby Cox told the New York Times, Lucas was the Atlanta Braves.
"“When you thought of the Braves’ organization, you thought of Bill Lucas. He knew the organization inside and out and every person from the superstar to the groundskeeper.”"
Dusty Baker came up through the Braves farm system when Lucas was director. He said Lucas understood how hard it was for a Black player in the south, and helped Baker learn how to “get by as a black person while maintaining your honor and dignity as a man.”
"He would tell you the truth, but he couldn’t tell you everything, and you had to be smart enough to read between the lines."
By all accounts, Lucas took to a leadership role naturally. He was not only an intelligent man with a welcoming personality; he’d done his time on the buses and backroads of the minor leagues.
Lucas knew the aches and pains of playing in the minors. He related to players on a personal level, and they responded to it. Lucas and Turner had a tumultuous relationship held together by mutual respect. Lucas’ wife recalled how her husband held Turner in check when he had one of his wonderful ideas.
"He would tell Turner ‘No, that’s not the way we’re going to do it. You don’t know a thing about baseball, so let me handle it.’” “He would say the things to Ted that nobody else would say,” Lucas’s daughter Wonya, a teenager during her father’s tenure as GM, tells me. “He would say, ‘I don’t care if they fire me.’ To him it was about doing the right thing, and he operated with no fear. It doesn’t matter if you’re Ted Turner, or if you’re a guy on the grounds crew.”"