ST. LOUIS — A former St. Louis Cardinals player is returning to the Major League Baseball franchise in a new role designed to bolster the team’s diversity and inclusion initiatives.
The Cardinals have hired Xavier Scruggs for the position of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) consultant. In the newly formed role, Scruggs will work within the team’s baseball operations to advance DEI efforts and engage with players on those topics.
Scruggs, 33, was drafted by the Cardinals in 2008 and appeared in games with the big league club in the 2014 and 2015 seasons. In his new capacity with the Cardinals, Scruggs said he will focus on ensuring the team has the right processes and strategies in place to improve diversity and inclusion. He said a key part of his new position will also be to provide mentorship for players, both in the major and minor leagues.
“A lot of times, I remember coming up (in the minors) and I didn’t have necessarily the mentor that I needed surrounding some of these issues, when we talk about diversity, equity and inclusion,” Scruggs said.
Cardinals President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak said the decision to hire Scruggs came amid a push to expand the Cardinals efforts around DEI following the conversation and protests on social injustice and racism that occurred nationwide in 2020.
“Hopefully, he’s a resource that helps calm, be reassuring and transparent on what’s happening in today’s world,” Mozeliak said.
The Business Journal caught up with Scruggs to discuss his new role. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
What makes this the right time to take on this new role? For me, it all stems from 2020 and just seeing everything from Covid situations, from politics situations, from minor leaguers not having a voice and so much uncertainty around them not being able to play last year. That was something I felt very passionate about. I’ve been part of the Players Alliance (which represents Black players in professional baseball) and heard what goes on in those conversations, and heard the disappointment from a lot of players on how they are not educated on current events today and what they can be able to do about those things. Those things started to stem in conversations and I started to understand "maybe this is a role I can be able to take on" with being certified in DEI education and understanding a lot of these issues stem from just being able to have the journey that I’ve had. Being able to go to different places like Colombia, Dominican Republic, South Korea, Mexico and just see different environments and see different backgrounds in which I wasn’t raised. When we talk about DEI, I think a lot of it is about unselfishness and understanding that everybody comes from a different area.
What are your biggest goals for this new role? The biggest goals would be to educate and prepare players for the cultural differences that they will see in baseball and in their communities where they play at — whether that be in St. Louis or in the minor leagues — and have them be prepared for those situations and understand what’s going on as far as current events, because new things are popping up daily. Also, equipping players with the resources and tools that can help them understand how they can use their platform and how they can use their influence, and understand, if you use your platform, that those things may be received as positive and/or negative and how do I respond to those types of things. Those are some initiatives as well as just helping the Cardinals organization present a favorable change when we’re talking about diversity and inclusion efforts.
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