A History Lesson from Mr. October
More stuff they didn't teach me...
As a lifelong Red Sox fane, I grew up disliking all things connected to the New York Yankees. For the first 37 years of my life, I was programmed to think that my team would eventually find a way to lose. Most often, this was at the hands of the Yankees. None of these was more painful than 1978, when the Red Sox held a 14-game lead over the Yankees on July 19, only to eventually end the regular season in a tie. In a one game playoff to decide things, the Red Sox lost a heartbreaking 5-4 game that featured a pop up over the Green Monster by Bucky “Bleeping” Dent that put the Yankees ahead in the 7th inning, erasing a two run lead. Reggie Jackson then added to the lead with a home run in the eighth inning to out the Yankees in from 5-2.
In some ways it seems like yesterday as I reflect on my childhood and being able to experience the great Yankee-Red Sox rivalry. Unsurprisingly, one thing that does not come to mind is any inkling of the racism that Reggie Jackson or any of his teammates might have faced as they made their way to the major leagues. I am thankful that Reggie shared a bit of his experiences last week as Major League baseball returned to Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama, the oldest existing professional park in the country having opened in 1910. As one of my children said to me in a text message after I sent them the above video, “Wow, Crazy, not that long ago.”
In fact even less long ago was the explicit racism that the black Red Sox players dealt with as major leaguers when they were in spring training. Back in 1985, the year I graduated high school, black and hispanic players were not welcomed at the Winter Haven Elks Club in the Florida city where the Red Sox made their spring training home. This eventually led a former Red Sox player and coach to file a Civil Rights Complaint against the team.
Most recently, there have been incidents of explicit racism towards visiting players at Fenway, which really should come as no surprise if you know something about the history of the city. The clip from the PBS Iconic America series below shares a bit of this.
I note the fact that this video clip was during the week of Juneteenth because the whitewashed history that I was taught was one where enslaved people were freed after the Emancipation Proclamation. There was no mention of the fact that slavery continued for years after this or of the state and local Jim Crow laws that ensued and reinforced segregation, discrimination, and violence. My history books also told the story of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in 1947 and of major league baseball being integrated. However, there was no discussion of local history and the racist ownership of the Red Sox at the time which did not sign their first black player until Elijah Jerry "Pumpsie" Green in 1959.
I am no longer surprised at what I was not taught, but I do think it is important to note that these omissions were not accidental. The racism involved in omitting important information was more subtle than some of what we are seeing today where leaders seek to openly ban books that provide uncomfortable point of view about our country’s horrific past in order to deter conversations about throughlines to a very problematic present day.