Yawkey blocked off at last
Change right move for Sox ownership
FORT MYERS — Sure, Jersey Street is a bit dull.
But when it comes to public street names in Boston, I’ll take retro and unimaginative any day ahead of the residue of a racist legacy.
Call me old-fashioned, I guess.
So, thank you Red Sox and the other two abutters along the for-now-named Yawkey Way for asking the city’s public improvement commission (PIC) yesterday to approve their request to scrub the name of the former Red Sox owner from one of the five streets that surround Fenway Park and replace it with Jersey Street.
This year hopefully will mark the end of the 41year run of Yawkey Way, which back in 1977 was what the team wanted the two-block section of Jersey Street between Boylston and Brookline Drive to be named as a way to honor recently deceased owner Tom Yawkey.
As long as the PIC and the mayor’s office do not fall for the false narrative promulgated by an outraged Yawkey Foundation that the Sox are relying upon false facts as the basis for this change, the decision not only is correct but also long overdue.
Considering this ownership group has had the power to initiate the change since it bought the team in 2002, the fact it took until now for action to be taken might be a story for another day.
We know from the introduction in Howard Bryant’s formative book “Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston” that principal owner John Henry became keenly aware shortly after purchasing the team of its damaged and somewhat toxic reputation in the black community, not only in New England but around the country.
The 12-year gap between Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier with the Dodgers in 1947 — two years after a tryout with the Red Sox that Robinson never felt was a sincere invitation — and the Sox being the last major league club to put a black player on the roster happened on Yawkey’s watch. The club did not make up for lost time quickly when it came to bringing in more black players right away, and there were other episodes, two involving Tommy Harper in the ’70s and ’80s. Boston was not a destination site for African-American players back then, and the stigma has not entirely disappeared to this day.
Whether Yawkey left a “smoking gun” of racist language is irrelevant and very much beside the point. He presided, benignly or not, without interfering with practices that added up to a legacy of racism.
We know the franchise under Henry and Tom Werner has made a concerted effort to reach out more to the racially and economically disenfranchised in the greater community during their 16 years.
But the street name and the 4 Yawkey Way address under which the Red Sox did business at Fenway Park festered without a great deal of commentary, concern or outrage until last August, when Henry told the Herald he wanted to change the name.
Henry has to date not elaborated on what served as the catalyst for his decision, but only a reality denier could disregard the increasing volume on a long-raging conversation about race in the United States the past couple years.
There’s little doubt the ugliness from last spring, when Baltimore center fielder Adam Jones reported hearing slurs from the crowd at Fenway Park, played a part, as the club’s immutable reputation reared its reprehensible head once again.
And who would be shocked to learn the ugly riot involving neo-Nazis and protesters against them in Charlottesville, Va., from early last August also played a role.
The Red Sox understand getting rid of Yawkey Way is a mere symbolic move, but I understand their efforts to spring from the understanding that symbols count in this day and age. See the removal of Confederate statues as an example of progress on that front.
Yes, the Yawkey family was very generous, and the foundation continues to contribute a great deal of money and resources to improving the lives of those who need it in New England.
Nobody’s crying to take down the name of Yawkey from anywhere else — inside or outside Fenway Park — except for this two-block street that happens to be a public street supported by taxpayer dollars.
There’s a much better way for the Yawkey legacy to be preserved.
Somewhere on Jersey Street, place a plaque that explains to fans and pedestrians in the decades to come about what that 41year stretch of Yawkey Way was all about — and why it came to an end.