Racism
in Baseball: Boston Red Sox
On July 21, 1959 at Comiskey Park in
Chicago, the Boston Red Sox needed one run to tie the game. It was the bottom of the 8th
inning with the score 2-1. Vic Wertz
reached first base but did not possess the fleetest of feet, so newly appointed
manager Billy Jurges inserted Elijah “Pumpsie” Green to pinch run for
Wertz. Green was making his Major League
debut when he entered the game, but more
importantly, he was the first African-American to play for the Boston Red
Sox. Until July 21, 1959, Boston was the
only remaining team in baseball that had yet to integrate black ballplayers
unto their team.[i] Jackie Robinson debuted for the Brooklyn
Dodgers in 1947 and retired after the 1956 season. The first African-American in baseball had
been retired for three years before the Red Sox integrated.
The racism of the Boston Red Sox
could be seen well before they became the last team to integrate an
African-American into their roster. Two
years before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, he and two other players
from the Negro Leagues, Marvin Williams and Sam Jethroe participated in a
tryout at Fenway Park. Owner Tom Yawkey,
at the request of Boston City Councilman Isadore Muchnick, agreed to hold the
tryout for the three players. Inspired
by World War II, Muchnick believed “if a man risked dying for his country on
the battlefield he deserved the right to play the game.”[ii] At the time, the playing of baseball on
Sunday was banned because of “Blue Laws.”
To continue playing on Sundays a waiver had to be signed by the City
Council. Unless the Boston Red Sox and
Boston Braves considered letting African American ballplayers join their team,
the waiver would not be signed.[iii]
Yawkey did what any sensible owner
would do and invited Robinson, Williams and Jethroe for a tryout just a week
before the start of the regular season. The
three ballplayers traveled hundreds of miles for the tryout, but were given the
runaround for over a week by the team, hoping they would not bother waiting
around. On April 16, an article by
sports reporter Dave Egan appeared in the Boston
Daily Record, unveiling to the public that the team invited the three to
Boston for a tryout but failed to give them one. The Red Sox finally gave in
and 10:00 am that same morning, the tryout began. After ninety minutes, the tryout was
complete. The team never scouted another
African-American player until years after Robinson broke the color barrier. It was rumored that before the players
finished their tryout, someone yelled from the entrance of the front-office in
the grandstand to “Get those niggers off the field!”[iv] It was never determined who said it, or if
indeed it was true, but many believe it to be either Yawkey or General manager
Eddie Collins. Because of the lack of
interest the Red Sox showed the three players during the tryout and afterwards,
many in the black community looked upon the team more negatively than they did
all the others in the major leagues.[v]
The tryout was not looked at as an
issue in the short-term future of the Boston Red Sox as it was often overlooked
because of the lack of African-Americans on other teams. As the years passed and other teams began to
integrate, more people looked at Boston and questioned their motives. With an opportunity to sign future
Hall-of-Famer Willie Mays, considered as one of the greatest players in Major
League Baseball history, the Red Sox instead chose to sign his teammate,
thirty-one-year-old Piper Davis in 1950.
After playing in only fifteen games for the Red Sox single-A affiliate,
Davis was cut from the team. It was
argued that the only reason Davis was signed by the Red Sox was for them to say
they gave an African-American a chance to play.[vi]
Team owner Tom Yawkey was from the
South and inherited a fortune from his stepfather. As owner of the Boston Red Sox, he preferred
to stay in New York rather than in Boston during the season and South Carolina
during the offseason.[vii] Other than being the last owner to sign an
African-American ballplayer to his team, he was considered a racist because of
“the consistent absence of black employees in the Red Sox operation.”[viii] Pinky Higgins, manager of the Red Sox from
1955 to July 3, 1959, was once quoted as saying “There’ll be no niggers on this
ball club so long as I have anything to say about it.”[ix] Pumpsie Green’s debut for the Red Sox was
eighteen days after Higgins was fired.
While integrated teams in the league
were enjoying success using African-African players, the Red Sox were still not
integrated and losing ballgames. As
noted by authors Robert and David Barney, “Throughout the 1950s, while other
clubs were actively identifying and signing the likes of Stachel Paige, Hank
Aaron, Larry Doby, Monte Irvin, Willie Mays, and Don Newcombe…the Red Sox stuck
to their racial mind-set.”[x] It was not until 1953 did Pumpsie Green get
signed and sent to play in the Minor Leagues for six seasons. Green was not considered a great ballplayer,
but spending six years in the Minor Leagues before promotion was a sign that
the Red Sox had no intentions of having an African-American on the Major League
team.[xi] From the decade before Green’s debut in 1959,
the Red Sox finished an average of seventeen games out of first place. The failure to win might have been the
breaking point that inspired owner Tom Yawkey to allow an African-American to
play for the Red Sox. Their record got
worse before it got better following Green’s debut, as the team would finish
with losing records from 1959-1966.[xii]
Green’s
debut did not change the element of racism surrounding the team. As author John Carroll noted, “Even when the
team did integrate, the Red Sox organization was far from enlightened on the
race question.”[xiii] There was no show of support from teammates
on the Red Sox like there was in the Dodgers organization when Pee Wee Reese
made it a point to embrace Jackie Robinson on the field. While the majority of the blame has to be
placed on ownership and management, it is fair to say that the players never
put pressure on the team to be more accepting of African-Americans. It was not until Luis Tiant became a star
pitcher for Boston in the 1970s did a black player get recognition by the team.[xiv]
The
image of being a racist team and town never left Boston until recent
history. In 2001, Red Sox outfield Carl
Everett responded to criticism from then manager Joe Kerrigan, calling him a
racist.[xv] The history of racism in Boston was a point
of emphasis for Everett when he expanded on his comments in 2005. A reporter asked him about his remarks
depicting Boston as racist and he was quoted as saying “It’s always been that
way for minority players. It’s always
been a joke. It was a terrible
organization.”[xvi] It is worth noting that Everett was suspended
for head butting an umpire in 2000, as well as getting in a fight with a fellow
African-American player for the Red Sox, Darren Lewis. The stigma that Boston has a history of
racism is hard to ignore.
Current Red Sox
President Larry Lucchino referred to the team’s history as “an undeniable
legacy of racial intolerance.”[xvii]
As the last team to integrate an African-American into their Major League team,
the Boston Red Sox will forever have a stain upon their organization. Times have changed for the better for the Red
Sox with victories in the 2004 and 2007 World Series. Pumpsie Green is looked upon as a hero for being
the first African-American to play for the Boston Red Sox, who are one of the
most recognized teams in baseball history.
Although not forgotten, the racial tensions that once existed have now
become a part of the past, which is a great thing for both the city of Boston
and the beloved Red Sox.
[i] Buckley, Steve. “Good Time to
Give Thanks to Pumpsie Green.” Boston
Herald, April 18, 2009.
[ii] Stout, Glenn. “Tryout and Fallout: Race, Jackie Robinson,
and the Red Sox.” Massachusetts
Historical Review 6, 2004. 12. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25081187.
[iii]
Stout, Glenn, 13.
[iv]
Barney, David E., Barney, Robert K..
“’Get Those Niggers Off the Field!’ Racial Integration and the Real
Curse in the History of the Boston Red Sox.”
Nine: A Journal of Baseball
History and Culture 16, (University of Nebraska Press, 2007), 4.
[v]
Stout, Glenn, 20.
[vi]
Ibid.
[vii]
Carroll, John M., ¨The Year of the Yaz,¨ in The
Rock, the Curse, and the Hub: A Random History of Boston Sports, ed. Randy
Roberts (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005), 77.
[viii]
Barney, David E., Barney, Robert K., 3.
[ix]
Carroll, John M., 77.
[x]
Barney, David E., Barney, Robert K., 3.
[xi]
Ibid.
[xii]
Boston Red Sox, http://boston.redsox.mlb.com/bos/history/year_by_year_results.jsp.
[xiii]
Carroll, John M., 78.
[xiv]
Barney, David E., Barney, Robert K., 6.
[xv]
Hueschkel, David, “Everett Leaves for Now, But Not Quietly.” Hartford Courant, September 23, 2001.
[xvi]
Haugh, David, “In Everett’s World, Boston Not on Map,” Chicago Sports Tribune, October 6, 2005.
[xvii]
Ostler, Scott, “First In Boston 50 Years Ago,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 21, 2009.
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