LAST, BUT NOT LEAST
Pumpsie Green’s arrivial in Boston in 1959 completed MLB’S integration
An older teacher walked into Heidi Green’s classroom one day years ago and noticed among the decorations on her desk were some baseball cards of a player he loved as a boy.
It was not a star player, not even a starting player, so the man wanted to know why she had his cards.
“Do you know anything about him and what he did?” he asked in a tone bordering on accusatory. “I’m from Boston and I was around when he played. He was amazing! He’s one of my heroes.” She couldn’t get a word in edgewise.
“What do you know about Pumpsie Green?” he demanded. “Why do you have his baseball cards?”
Finally given an opening, Heidi Green replied: “That’s my dad.” Elijah “Pumpsie” Green, a kid from El Cerrito High by way of the Richmond playgrounds, spent five seasons in the major leagues as a part-time player. He played in 344 games, batted .246, hit 13 home runs and stole 12 bases.
But on July 20, 1959, at Chicago’s Comiskey Park, Green became an everlasting piece of baseball history.
Entering as a pinch-runner in the eighth inning, Green became the first Black to play for the Boston Red Sox — the last team to integrate. Twelve years after Jackie Robinson broke the color line, Green closed the loop.
“My dad wasn’t trying to be the martyr. My dad wasn’t a Black Panther or anything like that,” said Heidi, who was born five years after her father left baseball in 1965. “He wasn’t trying to be a hero. He really was just a kid who wanted to play baseball.”
Pumpsie Green never was one for making a big deal of things. He was the oldest of Elijah and Gladys Green’s five boys, who included Cornell, a Pro Bowl safety for the Dallas Cowboys, and Credell, who was drafted by the Packers. Green was so unassuming and unpretentious he never bothered finding out why his mom began calling him “Pumpsie” as a kid. He only knew he liked it.
Green’s amiable personality often helped make things bearable for him. He was subjected to the atrocities Black Americans endured in the days of segregation. That included having racial slurs directed at him, and not being able to eat in the same restaurants or stay in the same hotels as his white teammates. He may not have liked it, but he didn’t complain.
“He used to say ‘This was just the way of the world then,’ ” Heidi said.
At times, the attention Green received for finally breaking the color line in Boston made him uncomfortable. In that way, he was just a simple man with an even simpler plan.
It wasn’t until Green’s playing career ended that he began embracing his place in baseball history, particularly during trips back to Fenway Park, where he was feted by fans old and young.
“I wasn’t thinking about history or what it all means,” Green said of his playing days in an interview for a video produced by the Red Sox in 2018. “I was thinking about getting to first base and second base ... with a base hit. That’s what I was thinking about.
“I play ball, that’s what I do.”
Still, Pumpsie Green became a reluctant pioneer in 1959 not because of what he did, but because of what the Red Sox couldn’t do. Under the leadership of owner Tom Yawkey and later his general manager Joe Cronin, the Red Sox continually rejected the idea of signing any Black players.
At various times, the Red Sox had future Hall of Famers Jackie Robinson, Billy Williams and Willie Mays in for tryouts and easily could have signed any or all of them. Their motives sometimes seemed suspect. It turned out the Red Sox reportedly only agreed to allow Robinson to try out in 1945 after a city official threatened to revoke the team’s license to play on Sundays if they didn’t show more racial tolerance.
George Digby, one of Boston’s longtime scouts, once told ESPN he had the 17-yearold Mays all but set to leave the Negro League to join the Red Sox in 1949 for a belowmarket contract of $4,500.
“We could have had Mays in center and (Ted) Williams in right,” Digby lamented. “But Yawkey and Cronin already made up their minds they weren’t going to take any Black players.”
By 1959, Boston remained the only major league team without a Black player. Pressure on the Red Sox intensified for their questionable hiring practices throughout their organization. An investigation by the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination revealed the Red Sox, save for one brief exception, hadn’t employed any African-americans. Not even as an usher or a janitor.
Facing mounting pressure from the MCAD and other state agencies pushing for change, the Red Sox made a long-awaited call for equality. It was answered in Minneapolis by Green, a minor-league All-star infielder who was resting in his tiny hotel room.
The 25-year-old standout, whose playing rights three years earlier had been purchased from his hometown Oakland Oaks, hustled to Chicago right before Boston’s game that night. Green was immediately greeted in the locker room by the legendary Ted Williams, who welcomed him to the big leagues.
A few minutes later, Green was on his way to the field when he heard a loud voice call out.
“Hey, El Cerrito!”
It was Jim Landis, a white outfielder for Chicago from Richmond High, who had played with and against Green in the East Bay for years. Landis came out to shake Green’s hand and wish his old friend good luck.
Green’s appearance later that night as a pinch runner would have a far-reaching impact, but his real joy came a few nights later in his first home game in Boston.
Celtics great Bill Russell, an old friend of Green’s from their high school days in the East Bay, had warned him about being Black in Boston. “It’s a flea market of racism,” Russell famously said of the city.
Green, though, was treated like royalty by Boston fans when he stepped up to the plate to lead off the bottom of the first inning. He received a rousing standing ovation.
“I didn’t want to disappoint them,” said Green, who surely didn’t when he blistered the second pitch he saw off the Green Monster for a triple.
Green couldn’t really ever top that thrill he had while standing on third base as the Red Sox crowd went wild. He eventually was traded to the New York Mets, where he spent the final year of his big league career.
After baseball, he returned home and received his degree from San Francisco State, which allowed him to begin working for the Berkeley Unified School District. Green became the baseball coach at Berkeley High, where he remained for 25 years until retiring in 1997.
Heidi Green, who was inspired enough by her father to become an educator herself, is now an assistant school superintendent in Daly City. But no matter where she goes in the Bay Area, her father’s admirers always seem to find her.
Pumpsie Green died a little more than a year ago — July 17, 2019, three days short of the 60th anniversary of his historic game — at a San Leandro hospital. He was 85.
“He’s been gone for a year and people are still checking in with me and telling me what an impact he made on them,” Heidi said. “It’s happened so many times.”
Recently, Heidi took her mother to a tax preparer. Before the man began crunching numbers, he just had to share that his best friend played for Pumpsie, and loved every minute of it.
“I’ve heard everything about my dad from his former students. People loved him and some even hated him,” Heidi said with a laugh, noting her dad also helped with school security. “But he really cared for all of the kids. He did right by them.”