First black player for Red Sox wanted to be an Oakland Oak
Elijah “Pumpsie” Green, who simply wanted to play for his hometown Oakland Oaks but was thrust into the national spotlight as a trailblazer and first black player on the Boston Red Sox, died Wednesday. He was 85.
The Red Sox, under racist owner Tom Yawkey, were the last bigleague team to integrate. Twelve years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Green debuted with the Red Sox in 1959.
Before Wednesday night’s game at Fenway Park, the Red Sox acknowledged Green with a moment of silence.
During an interview with The Chronicle in October, Green said he didn’t dream as a kid of playing in the major leagues. His goal, he said from his home in the El Cerrito hills, was to play for the Oaks of the old Pacific Coast League. He
never got the opportunity.
“I did the best I could with what I had,” said Green, noting in the interview he was dealing with diabetes. “I had a little success, and I enjoyed that. I always say to myself, ‘I accomplished the first thing I set out to do because I always wanted to be ...’ well, I didn’t always want to be a majorleague ballplayer, I’ve always wanted to be an Oakland Oaks ballplayer because that was the big team around here.”
Green was raised in Richmond and attended El Cerrito High School and Contra Costa College. He signed with the Oaks as a teenager and played for two of their farm teams, but before he could make it to Oakland, he was sold to the Red Sox.
Before the Giants and Dodgers moved West in 1958, the PCL was the highest brand of baseball on the West Coast.
“I grew up listening to Bud Foster,” Green said of the Oaks’ radio broadcaster. “That was my team, down the street on 40th and San Pablo (in Emeryville). That was a heck of a league, my league. The major leagues weren’t my first preference. If I could play for the Oakland Oaks, I wouldn’t have played in the major leagues. I never got the chance.”
In the den in his El Cerrito home, Green sat on a recliner next to a table with wellworn hats of two bigleague teams, the Red Sox and Giants. On the wall: a team picture of the Oakland Oaks.
Green hit .246 with 13 home runs and 74 RBIs in parts of four seasons with the Red Sox and one with the Mets. Sixty years ago Sunday, on July 21, 1959 — three years after Robinson retired — Green became the Red Sox’s first black player in the opener of a doubleheader in Chicago.
His first home game was Aug. 4. He batted leadoff, played second base and hit a firstinning triple.
“The place was rocking,” he said. “I took a deep breath. I looked at the umpire. He said, ‘Pumps, how are you doing?’ I said, ‘Fine.’ I hit a line shot to leftcenter field, high off the Green Monster. I kept running toward second. I saw the ball still in the outfield. I just kept going, and I slid into third very easily.
“Another standing ovation. I thought the stands were going to break down.”
Green experienced discrimination throughout his time in the Red Sox organization. He was one of the topperforming players in spring training in 1959 but was left off the Opening Day roster. Once he reached the majors, he initially wasn’t allowed to stay or eat with his white teammates.
“When I came along, the biggest thing was where will you stay, where are you going to eat, what are you going to do, where are you going to go?” he said.
“It practically overshadowed a lot of things I might’ve enjoyed more, but the conditions I was in, it just took a lot away from me, but I never let it get to me. Well, except a couple of times.”