Accusations are enough for Sox
The Red Sox carry more baggage than a pre-pandemic Royal Caribbean cruise ship.
Much of the painful ballast has been jettisoned during this century.
The media-made “Curse of the Bambino” was submerged with not one but four World Series titles in 15 years. Fenway Park sailed into its second 100 years with the addition of multiple amenities and upgrades, even at the cost of the venerable men’s room troughs. The team’s roster actually reflects that of Major League Baseball — for the most part — with a strong minority presence.
The Red Sox still bear the scarlet letter of “guilt by association” brought upon the past deeds and inactions of those long dead when it comes to race. As millions opt to press the delete button on 400 years of American history and culture, the past remains permanent. To choose not to learn from it is perilous.
The Red Sox want you to believe they have learned from the past sins concerning race committed in the team’s name. The team sent a 100,000-megawatt virtue signal via Twitter on June 10 in the wake of the current push for social justice, racial equality and part-time anarchy. The team said it stood firmly with former outfielder Torii Hunter after he claimed he was called the “n-word in Boston 100 times” during his 19year career while playing for the Twins, Angels and Tigers.
That tweet may cost the Red Sox $105 million in karma bucks.
Red Sox president and CEO Sam Kennedy said Hunter never provided proof of any of these occurrences. Still, the team backed Hunter, saying his “experience is real” while adding “if you doubt him because you’ve never heard it yourself, take it from us, it happens.”
The Red Sox claim there were seven incidents last season at Fenway Park in which fans used racial slurs. One is too many. None were made public in real time, nor were any other details offered.
A total of 2,924,627 fans watched the Red Sox at Fenway Park in 2019. They have all now been stained as racist, whether they believe Black Lives Matter, All Lives Matter or none of the above. It was too damn easy for the Red Sox to throw nearly three million paying fans under the No. 77 Massachusetts Avenue bus. If only we could defund the thought police.
“Guilt by association,” courtesy of your Boston Red Sox.
The Hunter incident was not the first time the current Red Sox ownership group played the “guilt by association” card on its fan base.
In 2017, Adam Jones claimed he heard a fan hurl the “n-word” at him from the center field bleachers. There was no video, evidence or witnesses who came forward. None of that mattered. Boston and its fans were guilty, again. Team owner John W. Henry awoke from 15 years of “nightmares” and agreed that it was time to erase “Yawkey Way” from Google Maps.
Tom Yawkey died 44 years ago and is not around to defend his reputation or explain his inability to sign a black ballplayer until 1959. The fact he kept Donald Fitzpatrick on the payroll for 24 years is enough justification to remove his name from anything.
But what happens when the “guilt by association” card gets flung back in the team’s face?
We’re seeing this play out real time thanks to the renewed push by attorney Mitchell Garabedian to get compensation and recognition for the sexual assault victims of former Red Sox clubhouse manager Fitzpatrick.
The sinister misdeeds committed by Fitzpatrick, who worked for the team from 1967-1991 and died in 2005, are the single heaviest historic anchor around the neck of the Red Sox franchise. And that’s quite an accomplishment.
Fitzpatrick admitted to sexually abusing young boys — mostly Black — at the team’s spring training facility in Winter Haven, Florida. Fitzpatrick pleaded guilty in 2002 to four counts of attempted sexual battery upon boys younger than 12 between 1975 and 1989.
Garabedian represents 21 men — 15 of whom are Black — who claim they were also victimized by Fitzpatrick at Fenway Park and at stadiums in Baltimore and Kansas City. He is seeking $5 million apiece for his clients — $105 million total — as “validation” and “a sense of healing.” Garabedian said Tuesday that the Red Sox are “revictimizing” his clients by not recognizing the past wrongs committed against them by Fitzpatrick.
Garabedian has been representing many of these men since at least 2011. He told the Boston Globe in 2012 that the “Red Sox have a moral obligation to resolve these cases.”
Charles Crawford of Taunton alleges Fitzpatrick abused him in the team showers and inside a locked storage room when he was 16 at Fenway Park back in 1991. Crawford, 45, said it took him 16 years to build up the courage to tell his mother about the abuse he suffered at the hands of Fitzpatrick. He called the team’s quick reaction to Hunter’s allegations “kind of a slap in the face.”
“I was a kid when I worked at Fenway. It was a dream to have the job,” Crawford said. “And for them not to even respond — and there’s so many of us. We were kids. We were innocent victims.”
If this looks like a cash grab, it is. There is no “legal” case here since any statute of limitations has long expired. The current ownership group settled with seven of Fitzpatrick’s victims in 2003 for $3.15 million and has long condemned Fitzpatrick’s actions.
In any other time and place, that would be enough. It has been for nearly decade in this case.
But we are in uncharted waters in 2020. Like Crawford said, the Red Sox opened themselves up for this renewed push in part by the speed in which Hunter was given the benefit of the doubt without the presence of facts.
Get woke.
Go broke.
Or at least end up looking like a bunch of hypocrites for not paying $105 million to a group of men who were abused by someone who worked for your organization before you owned it.