Red Sox owner John Henry told the Boston Herald’s Michael Silverman on Thursday that he believes the team should lead the effort to change the name of Yawkey Way outside Fenway Park.
Henry said he’s “haunted” by the racist past of former Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey, whose team was the last one in Major League Baseball to have an African-American player on its roster, in 1959.
The public street has been named after Yawkey since 1977, but, according to the Herald, that could change if the Red Sox and ’47, which owns stores across the street from Fenway, ask the City of Boston to approve a request. Bobby D’Angelo of ’47 told the Herald the company would be OK with the move, and Henry certainly is, too.
“We ought to be able to lead the effort, and if others in the community favor a change, we would welcome it — particularly in light of the country’s current leadership stance with regard to intolerance,” Henry said in an email to the Herald.
Added Henry: “The Red Sox don’t control the naming or renaming of streets. But for me, personally, the street name has always been a consistent reminder that it is our job to ensure the Red Sox are not just multi-cultural, but stand for as many of the right things in our community as we can — particularly in our African-American community and in the Dominican community that has embraced us so fully. The Red Sox Foundation and other organizations the Sox created such as Home Base have accomplished a lot over the last 15 years, but I am still haunted by what went on here a long time before we arrived.”
The Red Sox are off Thursday, and will face the New York Yankees on Friday to open a three-game weekend series at Fenway.
Thumbnail photo via David Butler II/USA TODAY Sports Images
