Pumpsie Green dies at age 85
Sox honor their first black player
BOSTON — Former Boston Red Sox infielder Elijah “Pumpsie” Green, the first black player on the last major league team to field one, has died. He was 85.
A Red Sox spokesman confirmed the death Wednesday night, and the team observed a moment of silence bef ore its game against the
Toronto
Blue Jays.
Green, who was inducted i nto t he
Red Sox
Hall of Fame in 2018, had been living in California.
Aspeedy but light-hitting utilityman, Green brought baseball’s segregation era to an end of sorts when he took the field against the Chicago White Sox on July 21, 1959 — more than a dozen years after Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Green joined the team on a lengthy road trip and had played nine games before taking the field at Fenway Park for the first time. Green said this year in an interview with NESN, the Red Sox TV network, that he remembered receiving a standing ovation when he came to the plate, batting leadoff.
“It was heart-warming and nerve-wracking,” he told reporters in 1997, when he returned to Boston to take part in ceremonies marking the 50th anniversary of Robinson’s debut. “But I got lucky: I hit a triple off the left-center fence.”
Green reached the majors as a role player, just once playing more than 88 games, and never hitting more than six homers or batting better than .278.
Green played parts of four seasons with the Red Sox before finishing his five-year career with the New York Mets, batting .246 overall with a total of 13 homers and 74 RBIs.