Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Boston Whiteskins

I have long maintained that there are probably more black people on the teams than in the stands at a Red Sox game in Fenway Park in Boston, MA.

Each team has 25 players, a manager and about six coaches.  Combined that's about 64 people.  Some of those 64 people are black, that is too dark skinned to have been permitted to play before general integration began in 1947.  Boston was the last of the 16 major league teams to have a black player: Pumpsie Green July 21, 1959.

Boston will start David Ortiz tonight, so that's one black person.  The starting pitchers will, of course, be white.  The 2013 St. Louis Cardinals are a pretty white team, too, but I'm still guessing that the blacks on the baseball teams will outnumber the black fans.

In games one and two of the Major Baseball League (MBL) finals in Fenway Park there were 38,435 and 38,436 fans.  Among them there may have been some black people but I did not see them.  Did you?  Do you ever at Fenway Park?  Check for yourself tonight on television when you watch/monitor game six.

Red Sox nation is insulated and isolated geographically, culturally and racially.  Maybe former Boston Celtic Bill Russell, an NBA legend, will show up but I doubt it.

The National Football League (NFL) is under some pressure to change the name of the Washington Redskins, which inspired the title of this post.  Maybe the MBL should go in the opposite direction and rename its Boston team as a reflection of the Boston fans.

No comments: