No rush to erase Yawkey imprint from scoreboard
Instead Sox focus on street name change
Weeks after Red Sox owner John Henry publicly pushed to rename Yawkey Way, the team indicated it’s in no rush to change Fenway Park’s own tribute to controversial former boss Tom Yawkey, even though it could do it immediately.
The park’s iconic scoreboard in left field includes two white vertical lines that spell the initials of the late Tom Yawkey and his wife, Jean, using Morse code. They are located where out-of-town scores are listed.
But even as Henry has said he’s “haunted” by Yawkey’s racist legacy, going so far to say the Sox should take the lead in renaming nearby Yawkey Way, the team suggested it’s not considering changing the scoreboard.
“Our current efforts are focused on petitioning the city to change the street name,” Zineb Curran, a Red Sox spokeswoman, said in an email. When pressed on why, Curran only repeated her statement.
Henry himself stressed earlier this month that while he prefers that Yawkey Way be named after retired slugger David Ortiz, doing so requires approval from both the city and Yawkey Way’s only other abutter, both of whom have expressed support.
Henry previously told the Herald the street name has been “a consistent reminder that it is our job to ensure the Red Sox are not just multicultural, but stand for as many of the right things in our community as we can.”
Lawmakers who are pushing the state to consider swapping Yawkey’s name off a nearby train station say Henry should be looking at his own park, too.
“I do think they should seriously think, amid this controversy, how much do you say in Fenway Park about the whole story about Yawkey?” said state Rep. Byron Rushing, a South End Democrat, who filed a bill to study renaming Yawkey Station.
State Rep. Ruth Balser, a Newton Democrat who co-sponsored the bill with Rushing, said while the train station falls under the state’s jurisdiction, Fenway falls to Henry.
“I would hope that the Red Sox organization would consider that,” she said, “as they consider supporting a change to the street.”
Yawkey himself had the coded initials inscribed on the Green Monster scoreboard in 1947 — the same year lights were installed and the wall painted entirely green, according to the team. Under Yawkey, the Sox were the last team to integrate in baseball, not doing so until 1959.
Thomas Whalen — a Boston University professor who has chronicled the Sox, including in a new book “Spirit of ’67” — described the tribute as Yawkey’s “own imprint.”
“That’s a really tough question,” he said of removing it. “But it’s something that should be discussed.”