Okay folks no need to repeat the blinding conflict of interest and criminal influence in the Everett casino deal. The Globe felt the same in the big wet one it gave Steve Wynn. Anyone have a guess how much ad dollars John Henry’s new ShamWow guy/CEO got Wynn to commit to?
The second story is a repeat of the long Tommy Harper narrative that has now evolved in to Yawkey Way being a plantation until Henry/Werner/Luccino arrived.
Now before everyone jumps on me I’m not here to say the Sox didn’t have problem. They did. But for too many reasons I do not believe Tom Yawkey was the racist the narrative writers have been trying to depict for decades.( He was from Detroit, not the South. He had huge land holdings in the Carolina’s among shit loads of other investments, and he like to go there to hunt, chill, and drink)
Were people under him who he allowed to run the place during the 30s, 40’sand 50s? Of course there were.
Dick O’Connell, the G.M. who brought us the 1967 Impossible Dream went to his grave saying Yawkey was always on him to get more Black ballplayers. (O’Connell then went on to trade Sparky Lyle to the Yankees for Danny Cater so I understand if you take what he says with a grain of salt)
Now to Tommy Harper.
Here’s what happened. The Sox use to train in Winter Haven, Florida. It’s in Central Florida in the middle of nothing accept orange groves, cattle ranches, and old school southern people If you catch my drifty.
When they first went their in the 60s it was typical of where many other teams would go. The Tigers are still in nearby Lakeland. The idea was to get the players in the middle of nowhere where they can’t carouse like usual and forced to work on getting in shape.
The Red Sox clubhouse guy was Vince Orlando. The only bigger legend was his brother Johnny Orlando. There isn’t a Ted Williams book out there that doesn’t mention Johnny.
When he died Vince took over. There isn’t a Carl Yastrzemski book out there that doesn’t mention Vince.
Oh, and did tell you they both had miserable dispositions. That worked well for Johnny because he was a man of his times in the strange world of baseball.
As times changed not so good for Vince. Women in the clubhouse? He wasn’t a bad guy. Just a product of his generation.
He eventually was forced into retirement (he was pretty old then) when he physically pushed the late Globe columnist Larry Whiteside out of the clubhouse. Whiteside was probably the only Black member of the Boston Baseball Writers Association. So that didn’t help matters but Vince was being Vince and he was a writer that was suppose to be gone.
Okay, so in those days the clubhouse guy was the gatekeeper, mother, and janitor for the team. Everything went through him. Casual, but you get it. So the Winter Haven Elks Club, whites only, had a restaurant where they let the ball players eat for free. Vince always made sure they Knew about it and gave the white guys the passes.
Yeah, I know. I’m not here to defend it.
Anyway, as Winter Haven grew and added Pizza Huts and crap chains normal people didn’t eat at the Winter Haven Elks Club. The pass was more like a piece swag that few people used and most didn’t know it was segregated. Except Vince.
Now we’re in the 1980s and Harper is a pre-season coach and a minor league scout. He complains. It stops.
Now the next part is most important. To me we missed a rare opportunity to have a discussion on race that went beyond the pointing of fingers.
Harper got depressed. He was bummed because the Sox made him feel like less of a man. That pisses people off and each is affected differently. He got into a huge funk. He stopped showing up games he suppose to scout. That’s bad. He basically checked out the latter part of the season.
Now comes Lou Gorman. The likable old school baseball man who didn’t really deal with the Elks thing and to him it was a closed issue starts making his personnel moves for the next season. Managers, coaches, and scouts at all levels. And…. for every job available there are 50 friends with great resumes pounding on your door.
So Lou goes through his list and sees Harpers performance and it’s a no brainer. Harper’s gone.
Now comes Tommy Harper’s complaint with the MCAD and everything comes out in the wash. The Sox negotiate a deal with MCAD and The Boston Chapter of THe NAACP. Diane Wilkerson helped broker it.
The team then went full cycle in filling the front office with qualified African Americans. Lou Gorman promoted a Black woman who was an attorney for the team to assistant general manger. It made national news. Lawyers were beginning to infiltrate the baseball side of business and Lou needed her.
Harper came back to the team and then wen to other teams and eventually came back to the Sox where he bagged dan Duquette paying him $30,000 less that fellow coach Mike Stanley. Highly doubtful that was racist. More like cheap bastard Duquette getting away with saving thirty grand.
You guys have all that. Okay, because what happened next was John Henry bought the team and said he was going to change the way things were done around there.
If what he meant by that was an increase in front office and clubhouse staff by over 100% to over 70 employees and only two of them are African American. One is the women attorney Gorman promoted and another is a clubhouse guy also hired years before Henry bought the team. Gone are the many other African Americans working there the years prior to new ownership.
I’ve been following this for years now and have made a point to do the head count for BMGers most springs showing this hypocrisy.
Anyway, tell me that front page story wasn’t another gift for the boss. Making sure the narrative stays alive that John Henry freed the slaves on Yawkey Way.
CONTEST I need a satirical name for The Boston Globe. I have nothing. They’re such hypocritical unethical dickweeds and I’m stumped. So I’m asking for your help.
If you have a suggestions for a name more deserving for the Globe please comment with it or send me a tweet at ErnieBoch3.
thanks
Twitter @ErnieBoch3
JimC says
I didn’t know Larry Whiteside was black.
paulsimmons says
There is some interesting history here, here, and here.
I believe that a quote from the article linked last is sufficient proof:
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
Yawkey listened to the baseball men he hired.
Higgins may of been a racist but a 1950s white guy using racial slurs is not the problem but a perfect excuse for the ignorant writers of today who use current standards to to judge people of years gone by.
But, yeah Higgins was a problem. But does that mean Yawkey overruled on him on specific players. If his baseball man said that “this kid Jackie Robinson doesn’t have it” who’s he to disgree.
Yawkey didn’t scout these guys. He was more of a benign patisie.
JimC says
The Red Sox were THE LAST TEAM to sign a black player (the immortal Pumpsie Green). The second team to sign a black player did so mere months after the Dodgers signed Jackie Robinson.
All the owners knew about black players, and who was good. John MacGraw, no saint, supposedly died with a list of players in his pocket, guys he wanted if integration ever came. And he died in 1934.
fenway49 says
Because Higgins, a Texan who was bench manager and wouldn’t have a black player, had been canned. ’59 team was awful and they brought Higgins back, but by then he was stuck with Green. Earl Wilson, a pitcher, came up next and pitched a no-hitter while stone drunk in 1962.
bob-gardner says
which is what happened to black children in the Red Sox clubhouse and showers.
The Globe eventually covered it (very gingerly) when some of the children sued years later. The Sox got away with settling for nickels and dimes. The perp got resettled in a condo a quarter mile from a high school with lots of minority students. I’ve never seen it even mentioned in the Herald.
Lots of people still around who were there when the story first should have broken (eg Nick Cafardo) But nobody seems to have investigated or wrote about it for years.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
Don Fitzpatrick worked for the Sox and moved up to replace Vince Orlando head equipment manager when he “retired”. (see above)
One day, two or three years after Fitzie got the promotion, the team was in Anaheim. During a batting practice a gentleman sat behind the Red Sox dugout and held up a huge sign that couldn’t be missed.
It said something very similar to the following:
“My name is XXXXX. Red Sox Equipment Manager Don Fitzpatrick molested me when I was a 14 year old clubhouse kid in Winter Haven Florida.”
Fitzpatrick immediately put on plane back to Boston and never heard from again. He had a liken for young African American men and favored them in hiring. Others came forward and with complaints and the Soz settled with all of them.
The molestation he was accused of occurred in Florida and he was prosecuted down there for it.
So as for scandal Bob, it’s more like they were ahead of the game and unlike the Catholic Church they dealt with head on and nipped it in the bud.
This all happened years before the priest abuse changed the paradigm.
bob-gardner says
You have some of the main points right, Ernie, but . . .
The man with the sign was never mentioned in the press until years later, when some of Fitzpatrick’s victims sued.
Fitzpatrick was not charged criminally at the time, or even fired. Instead, he was allowed to quit on his own terms after a period of time. Check out Nick Cafardo’s reporting on how Fitzpatrick left. Cafardo was in Anaheim the day of the sign incident, by the way. His story, like everyone else’s who was there, made no mention of the incident.
Fitzpatrick was also accused of molesting boys in the Boston clubhouse, although most of the victims were apparently molested in Florida, not that it makes any difference.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
I don’t know nor do i care when the sign incident was “mentioned in the press”. Within 24 hours shitloads of people knew about. And who cares how the guy left, he came to work again after the sign incident.
You confuse cover-up with a private company doing everything it should except calling a press conference announcing they suspect they have a pedophile in their midst.
And BTW it was just an allegation without even a criminal charge when the Sox made sure he wasn’t working assuring he wasn’t around any more clubhouse kids.
So what is your beef again Bob/
And what do you think of John Henry’s record on employing African Americans in non-babseball jobs/
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
he never came to work again after the sign incident.
bob-gardner says
Fitzpatrick was still working for the Red Sox two weeks after the incident when he approached Red Sox Counsel John Donovan and asked for time off.
My beef is that the Red Sox covered up for a pedophile who was using Red Sox paraphernalia to lure children into the Red Sox shower room and then sodomized them.
Another beef is that they let him quietly retire and relocate without giving any warning to the local authorities. Sound familiar?
It was another 10 years before Fitzpatrick was prosecuted, after a group his victims came forward and sued.
I won’t comment on John Henry’s hiring record because I like to know the facts before I comment, and you never bother to get your facts right.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
After the sign incident Fitspatrick never worked again. I don’t care what the Globe reported. THAT’S A FACT! The Sox never let him work again. That doesn’t mean they didn’t allow him to retire. Remember this was just one allegation at the time and years before the world starting showing concern for child sexual abuse.
Who cares though? The guy never came back to work after Anaheim.
BTW Funny how the new ownership chose a guy who’s been dead for 20 years (the club counsel) to blame the past on.
bob-gardner says
Check the Globe archives for September 7, 1991.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
Give me link if u want to read. Then go ask the scores of people working who Fitzpatrick would deal with during the course of a game and ask if they ever saw him again after Anaheim. The answer is NO. They don’t need the Globe to tell them that.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
Like Everett casino deal being mobbed up.
bob-gardner says
https://secure.pqarchiver.com/boston/doc/294619836.html
“Red Sox Counsel John Donovan said [Donald Fitzpatrick] approached about the time off late Thursday afternoon. Fitzpatrick was tending to his chores before the game.” –Boston Globe Sept 7, 1991 “Team has instant recall-Zupcic” p 33.
Ernie, give me the names of those scores of people who you say never saw Fitzpatrick after Anaheim. If u want to interview.
Sex with a minor was still a crime in 1991, and child abuse was a major concern. So stop pretending that this was ” years before the world starting showing concern for child sexual abuse.”
All these lies–I’m starting to understand why you want to stay anonymous.
Trickle up says
Mark L. Bail says
I don’t know if Yawkey was racist, but white Detroit was particularly racist. A lot of hillbillies and racist Southerners moved to Detroit early in the 20th century and brought their attitudes with them.
Throughout the 80’s and into the early 90s, sexually predatory educators were quietly let go, sometimes with a letter of recommendation. So the Red Sox actions, while not right, may have been par for the course in those days.
bob-gardner says
What’s your point?
Mark L. Bail says
What’s your problem?
johnk says
but this is the winner. Congratulations.
Tom Yawkey was a racist, and ran his team that way. Are you kidding me, you should be ashamed of yourself. You are not, because of this garbage you are writing on the behalf of a disgusting person, but you should be.
Ernie’s next post, the bus driver was not at fault when when he told Rosa Parks to give up her seat. he was actually from Detroit.