MIAMI – Michael Hill wrapped up a busy week with the MLB draft. As president of baseball operations for the Miami Marlins, Hill was ecstatic with the pitchers the team was able to find in the draft. He believes the future is bright for the organization.
But, Hill also had an issue he wanted to discuss that he felt was much more important to the future, and it had nothing to do with baseball.
Hill joined Local 10 Sports Sunday and discussed a topic that is at the forefront of so many conversations these days in America; racial injustice and police brutality toward members of the black community.
Hill is one of only a handful of black executives in Major League Baseball. He was born to an African-American father and a Cuban mother. He feels he can be part of the voice for change and said now is the time to take action.
“We rallied our group of leaders in baseball and said, ‘Enough is enough.’ Racial injustice, we know it’s despicable, but we know that we all can do more. We know as a powerful group we can do more. We can bring awareness, which was the first goal, but the second goal was to try and keep this movement moving forward,” Hill explained on the show.
Hill knows that people care, but he wants to make sure that it doesn’t stop with just words and statements of change.
“So many times when something awful happens, we all acknowledge it’s awful and then we’re on to our next thing in 24 hours, but this was something that we wanted to put our money where our mouth was. We wanted to make sure that this movement continues and change is truly put in place,” Hill stressed.
He added, “We understand that ’Black Lives Matter,’ but we also wanted to show that we are united for change. Thirty competitors in baseball were united and we’re all going to use our voices that we have to do more. There’s some self reflection that we all have to do.”
MLB announced that donations were made to several organizations that support and fight for racial justice, including the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Equal Justice Initiative, Color OF Change, Campaign Zero and the Jackie Robinson Foundation.