Red Sox trying to change street name, make it 'inclusive and welcoming for all'
The history of race and the city of Boston is not one to be proud of.
The history of race and the Red Sox is even worse.
Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier back in 1947. A man by the name of Pumpsie Green became the first African-American to play for the Red Sox … in 1958.
Now, team ownership is trying to right what they consider to have been one wrong after another.
In 1977, an area in front of Fenway Park — Lansdowne Street — was renamed “Yawkey Way,” after longtime owner Tom Yawkey, who bought the Sox in 1933 and owned them until his death in 1976.
Yawkey oversaw what many see as the team’s disgraceful record in race relations, which included farcical tryouts for Robinson and Willie Mays.
Known as a “good old boy,” Yawkey catered to white stars like Ted Williams and Carl Yastrzemski, but didn’t show the same affection for his minority players.
Wednesday, the Red Sox officially filed a petition to restore Yawkey Way to its original name of Jersey Street.
Red Sox filed a petition to the city to restore the name of Yawkey Way to Jersey Street. Here is a statement from the team: pic.twitter.com/5ILfEDeeoq
— Rob Bradford (@bradfo) February 28, 2018
The team said in a statement that the reason for the change is to “reinforce that Fenway Park is inclusive and welcoming to all.”
Principal owner John Henry said last August that he was “haunted” by Yawkey’s legacy.
There is also a charitable organization honoring the late owner. The Yawkey Foundation has done tremendous work, especially with childhood cancer, and the team’s current ownership group wanted to stress that charity work bearing Yawkey’s name is different than the racial issues.
“It is important to separate the unfortunate and undeniable history of the Red Sox with regards to race and integration from the incredible charitable work the Yawkey Foundation has accomplished in this millennium and over the last 16 years,” the team’s statement read.
For its part, the Foundation issued its own statement, saying the team was fighting for the name change “based on a false narrative about Tom Yawkey and his record as the team’s owner.”
Yawkey “attempted to acquire and promote black ballplayers throughout the 1950s,” the statement continued, and the request to change the street name “fails to take into account the entirety of Tom Yawkey’s life and his generosity to the city he loved.”
Whatever the message, it certainly seems like a Boston landmark is about to undergo a major face lift.
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