Recalling Al Campanis' 'Nightline' nightmare

Nothing could have prepared me for what happened that spring night.

I had just finished my first week as guest producer on ABC's "Nightline." And I got a quick introduction into the power of live television. Just a few words and neither the baseball world nor one man's career would ever be the same.

I was the "Nightline" producer who first called Al Campanis, inviting him on the broadcast to honor Jackie Robinson 40 years after he broke baseball's color barrier.

"Nightline" had already established a reputation as a no-nonsense broadcast with Ted Koppel forcing guests to answer his questions directly, without filibustering or obfuscating. But baseball was not, by Ted's own admission, in his sweet spot.

On this Monday night, the broadcast was to be a nostalgic remembrance of one of sport's greatest milestones.

It was also one of those nights when we were lucky to make air. One of the scheduled guests, Don Newcombe -- another black baseball pioneer who followed Robinson to the Dodgers -- was on a flight that would not land in time for the show. Roger Kahn, author of "The Boys of Summer," barely got to the Manhattan studios before airtime because of flooding in Westchester County.

And Al Campanis, the Los Angeles Dodgers vice president and general manager and a friend of Robinson's, was to be interviewed via satellite while sitting at home plate at the Astrodome, presuming the Dodgers-Astros game ended in time.

As each guest came perilously close to missing the show, I was convinced I would be fired.

When I finally got word at home that Kahn had arrived with just a few minutes to go and Campanis and Koppel were electronically linked at the last minute, I settled in to watch, expecting anything but what happened next.

Campanis may have been a 40-year baseball veteran, but on this night he was a novice as a guest on a network news broadcast.

Kahn asked why there were so few blacks running ballclubs, 40 years after Robinson's historic moment in 1947.

And Ted turned to Campanis, saying, "It's a legitimate question," and proceeded to ask him why "there are no black managers, no black general managers, no black owners?"

Campanis responded with a jaw-dropping answer: "I truly believe that they may not have some of the necessities to be, let's say, a field manager, or perhaps a general manager."