Team owner to renew push to rename Yawkey Way amid statue debate

BOSTON — A dark blue banner with red letters reads “Welcome to Yawkey Way,” and on Friday morning it still hung over a street lined on one side by shops selling Boston Red Sox gear and souvenirs, and on the other by the brick facade of the team’s century-old home, Fenway Park.

The question was, how long would the banner, and the name, remain?

The Red Sox this week strode into a roiling national debate about racism, monuments and history when the team’s owner, John Henry, said the club would renew its efforts to have the city rename Yawkey Way. The designation honors former Red Sox owner Thomas Yawkey, a member of the Hall of Fame whose long tenure remains infamous to some because of his resistance to efforts to integrate baseball in the 1950s.

Henry’s comments came at a tense time in this city, where some fear that a rally scheduled for Saturday will attract white nationalists.

Yawkey Way, just two blocks long, is a narrow and unremarkable roadway, but it is familiar to Red Sox fans because it transforms into a pedestrian promenade on gamedays. By noon Friday, before an important weekend series with the New York Yankees, fans had already begun filtering onto the street.

Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh supports changing the name, members of his staff said, although he declined to address the topic with reporters.

The Yawkey Foundations, a major local charity, issued a statement saying it was disheartened by the proposed change.

“We are honored to have the Yawkey name on so many organizations and institutions that benefit Bostonians of all races,” the statement said. “We are disheartened by any effort to embroil them in today’s political controversy.”

Yawkey owned the Red Sox for more than 40 years until his death in 1976, and the team remained in his family until it was sold to a group headed by Henry in 2002.