blackascoal
The Force is With Me
The team’s current leadership is “still haunted” by the racist legacy of the owner Jackie Robinson called “the most bigoted man in baseball.”
The Boston Red Sox will lead an effort to change the name of a street near their stadium named after a former team owner who has been decried for years as a racist, current owner John W. Henry told The Boston Herald on Thursday.
Yawkey Way, which runs alongside the team’s Fenway Park, is named for Tom Yawkey, who owned the franchise from 1933 to 1976. Under his leadership, the Red Sox passed on the chance to sign Jackie Robinson ― who broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 ― and did not sign their first black player until 1959.
Yawkey’s stance against signing black players reportedly cost the Red Sox a chance to sign Hall of Famer Willie Mays, and made the franchise the last team in baseball to integrate its roster.
Yawkey died in 1976, and the street outside Fenway was named for him a year later. But that could change if Henry gets his way.
“For me, personally, the street name has always been a consistent reminder that it is our job to ensure the Red Sox are not just multi-cultural, but stand for as many of the right things in our community as we can – particularly in our African-American community and in the Dominican community that has embraced us so fully,” Henry told the Herald.
Henry, who bought the Red Sox in 2002, added that he is “still haunted by what went on here a long time before we arrived.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...7f2e4b0e8cc855c466b?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
.. and the cultural war continues .. with racists being kicked back into the Stone Age.
The Boston Red Sox will lead an effort to change the name of a street near their stadium named after a former team owner who has been decried for years as a racist, current owner John W. Henry told The Boston Herald on Thursday.
Yawkey Way, which runs alongside the team’s Fenway Park, is named for Tom Yawkey, who owned the franchise from 1933 to 1976. Under his leadership, the Red Sox passed on the chance to sign Jackie Robinson ― who broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 ― and did not sign their first black player until 1959.
Yawkey’s stance against signing black players reportedly cost the Red Sox a chance to sign Hall of Famer Willie Mays, and made the franchise the last team in baseball to integrate its roster.
Yawkey died in 1976, and the street outside Fenway was named for him a year later. But that could change if Henry gets his way.
“For me, personally, the street name has always been a consistent reminder that it is our job to ensure the Red Sox are not just multi-cultural, but stand for as many of the right things in our community as we can – particularly in our African-American community and in the Dominican community that has embraced us so fully,” Henry told the Herald.
Henry, who bought the Red Sox in 2002, added that he is “still haunted by what went on here a long time before we arrived.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...7f2e4b0e8cc855c466b?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
.. and the cultural war continues .. with racists being kicked back into the Stone Age.
