Race, Baseball, Boston, Bonds

My sympathy for Boston's "curse of the Bambino" dropped a bit after reading this piece on Alternet about Barry Bonds's recent comment that he would never play for the Red Sox because of the city's racism. It turns out that Boston was the last team in Major League Baseball to integrate, and when it did, it did so only half-heartedly:

The Boston Red Sox were the last team in major league baseball to integrate. They waited so long to sign African-Americans, that the hockey team, the Bruins, actually beat them to it. The Sox removed their color line in 1959 twelve years after Jackie Robinson broke through with the Brooklyn Dodgers. They begrudgingly brought marginal infielder Pumpsie Green up from the minors. But it didn't have to be Pumpsie.

In April 1945 the Red Sox held a private tryout at Fenway Park for Robinson himself. With only management in the stands, someone yelled "Get those niggers off the field," and the door was shut. In 1949, the Red Sox laughed off the chance to sign Bonds's godfather, the legendary Willie Mays, who would go on to hit more career home runs than all but one man before him and awe crowds with his speed and defense. As Juan Williams reports, "One of the team's scouts decided that it wasn't worth waiting through a stretch of rainy weather to scout the black player." That decision killed the possibility that Mays and Ted Williams might have played in the same outfield.

In the 1950s, as teams immeasurably strengthened themselves by signing players like Mays, Henry Aaron, Ernie Banks, Don Newcombe, Roy Campanella, Elston Howard, and others, the Red Sox stood pat with an all white hand. (The next time you hear a Boston fan complain about "The Curse of the Bambino", correct them that their "Curse of the Racism" has had a much more adverse effect.)

All I can say is: Go Yankees.