The world knows that Omar Minaya and Willie Randolph were the first Manager, General Manager duo of color in New York sports history.
Most people don’t know that they actually first worked together 42 years ago (1982) in a Canon Camera television commercial.
How that happened was that I had worked often with Grey Advertising, the ad agency that did many of the sports commercials of that era.
During the 1970s the biggest sports personality to do commercials was Reggie Jackson, especially after the 1977 World Series and the birth of Mr. October. Grey advertising wanted someone close to Reggie to be his coordinator and aid. Reggie insisted on having me do that job. That began a nice relationship with Grey Advertising and me.
In early 1982 Grey wanted to do a commercial with Dave Winfield for Canon Camera. The negotiations unfortunately didn’t go well because of money. Grey executives asked me what I thought and I immediately recommended Willie Randolph. Besides knowing Willie from the Yankees, we had actually played together in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization and were signed by the same scouts (Dutch Doitz and Howie Haak). I always loved jabbing at Willie the fact that I was a second-round draft pick and Willie was seventh. That scout should have been fired Lol.
For me, Willie was a natural and the Grey executives totally agreed. The commercial was to be shot in Fort Lauderdale.
When I received the script I saw that a catcher and baserunner was going to be needed. Another friend that I grew up with was Omar Minaya. He had already played for the Oakland A’s and the Seattle Mariners organization. He had recently been released so I told the director that we had to have Omar so that we could give the commercial true authenticity as opposed to using a regular actor and possibly having him break his leg sliding. They totally agreed. I told Willie about Omar and he gave the final approval.
The next day we flew Omar in and he was like a kid in a candy store. He was flawless in the Homeplate scene with Willie and great at trying to break up a double play. At one point Willie told me to remind Omar that this is fantasy not reality, and try not to hurt him when breaking up the double play. I laughed and said you can handle Omar, after all, he is not Hal McCrae and we laughed. ( referring to the 1977 playoff game when McCrae knocked Willie pretty hard in trying to break up a double play).
At one point during lunch, Willie was amazed at how much Omar could eat. I told Willie that you should see him during breakfast.
The commercial was an absolute success and Omar loved receiving the residual checks for doing the job. He actually thought that a mistake was made and I explained to him how he would continue to be paid depending on how much the commercial was played.
That was actually the start of a nice relationship between Minaya and Randolph.
Willie would continue on what arguably was a hall-of-fame career and then would win four more World championship rings coaching with the Yankees.
Omar would go on to a historic scouting career by signing some of baseball’s greatest players including Juan Gonzalez and Sammy Sosa. He would make history by becoming the first Latin American general manager for the Montreal Expos.
Two years later he would become G. M. For the New York Mets and he would hire the city’s first black Manager Willie Randolph.
To this day Omar and Willie are very good friends with a beautiful respect for one another.
In my life by the grace of God it always seems that I get to have my hand on a lot of these things. I have to say that I’m very proud of these two wonderful men because to know them is to truly love them.
All of baseball should always understand the magnitude of their contributions to the game This story is dedicated to Omar’s beautiful wife Rachel… You will never be forgotten.
