Customer Reviews

It Was Never About the Babe: The Red Sox, Racism, Mismanagement, and the Curse of the Bambino

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Once I opened the book, I had a great deal of difficulty putting it down. As a life long Red Sox fan, I thought I knew a lot about my team. As Jerry Gutlon ppointed out, I didn't know half of it. It was very disturbing to read the terrible truth about the racism and troubles of the organization prior to the John Henry group's purcahse of the team. Jerry tells it like it is and I hope to see more of his incisive writing on the local sports scene.

Thank God this book has done what two world series championships have not been able to do and that is put to rest the stupid idea that by trading or selling Babe Ruth to the Yankees the Red Sox were cursed to not win another championship for 86 years. This book clearly makes an argument that if there is a curse it was the curse of Tom Yawkey. Often seen as a baseball good guy in Boston baseball history, here he is show as a racist and an alcoholic whose gross mismanagement of the team lead to the loss of many talented young rookies for over the hill veterans who never produced.

More shamefully, Yawkey's bigotry prevented the Red Sox from signing any talented young black athletes or using any black scouts to find them. This way he could high behind the "we can't find anyone worthy" scam for quite a long time. The book does a great job of destroying the arguments of Yawkey apologists and shows how even after Yawkey's death, his legacy continued through a trust that ran the Red Sox on auto pilot and continued to mistreat the club and the fans all in the name of the Red Sox "legacy."

This is a must read for Sox fans who want a true understanding of why it took them 86 years to win the World Series and why John Henry and company have won two series in less then 10 years while Yawkey never won a single series. There are a few factual errors so I can't give it a full five stars but I recommend it non the less.

I struggled over giving this book 3 or 4 stars. I settled on 4 because there is a lot of interesting material about the history of the Red Sox for both Red Sox fans in particular and baseball fans in general. I thought of giving a 3 because the material could have been presented better by a more highly skilled writer.

The premise is that there was never such a thing as a curse that kept the Red Sox from winning a World Series for almost a century. Not exactly the hardest challenge to prove that a superstition was not the actual cause of the team's problems, as Gutlon goes on to demonstrate. Racism, administrative and managerial incompetence, poor managerial moves in key situations, bad overall strategy for finding talent, poor trades, etc., were among the actual causes of the Red Sox failed attempts to win a world series and to field consistently good teams. There are a lot of interesting tidbits and information that make reading the book worthwhile: for example, that the Red Sox, at the turn of the 20th century, had a Latino pitcher but changed his name to hide his ethnicity; that owner Tom Yawkey owned and financed a brothel in South Carolina; that the Red Sox held a sham try-out for Jackie Robinson and other Negro League players; and, that Ted Williams was immature and arrogant, and once gave Red Sox fans the finger after hitting a home run.

The quality of the writing could have been better. Gutlon uses too many cliches, even referring to someone as "not the sharpest knife in the drawer". It seems as if 90% of the text is quotes attributed to other baseball writers, or qoutes from newspapers that covered the Red Sox, or qoutes from the Sporting News. There is very little of Gutlon's own voice in the book, and therefore very little of his own analysis or interpretation of the material he worked with. The only time he displays his own voice is in a diatribe against Dan O'Shaugnessy, the sportswriter who coined the Curse of the Bambino and apparently made a lot of money from a book about the subject.

For a die-hard baseball fan, the recounting of individual scores of important games and updates on each years won-lost recors is palatable. However, Gutlon seems to lose his train of thought as he gets caught up in inconsistencies, labeling very similar ERA's and pitchers' won-lost records as both good and bad, seemingly applying the label he feels most appropriate to make his current point. There is more of this throughout the book, like first mentioning in a footnote that Roger Clemens' name came up in relation to steroids, downplaying it as if it was a minor thing, and then mentioning it again in a later footnote but this time giving it more serious discussion. Perhaps Gluton's greatest Gaffe in this regard is in one of his last chapters, when he describes the Red Sox World Series win as finally putting a dagger into the curse and ending it for all time. So there was a curse after all? If Gluton meant this sarcastically it did not come across like that.

In sum, there is enough interesting material here about baseball, the Red Sox and individual players to satisfy a baseball fan, and the book is written to do not much more than that.

Whether you are a Red Sox fan, a Yankee fan, or, really, any type of baseball fan, you are going to love Jerry M. Gutlon's new book It Was Never About The Babe. This incredibly well-researched book completely debunks the myth that Boston's 86-year World Series championship drought had anything to do with Harry Frazee's trade of Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees after the 1919 season.

Instead, as Gutlon demonstrates in great detail, the real reasons why the Red Sox couldn't get over the hump for almost a century were: (1) racist ownership, and (2) stubborn, often stupid, and almost always inflexible management.

While the rest of baseball was embracing racial integration during the late 1940s and the 1950s, the Boston Red Sox remained an all-white team. It wasn't until 1959 that the Sox signed Pumpsie Green, making Boston the last team in baseball to integrate. The discrimination wasn't limited to black players. Yawkey also kept Catholics and Jews off the team, a practice that led to a 1959 lawsuit against the Sox.

But it wasn't just racism that kept Boston down for so long. It was also a series of poor, stubborn decisions by ownership and management that contributed to the drought. Perhaps the most famous example of poor on-field management occurred in Game 7 of the 2003 American League Championship Series, when manager Grady Little left Pedro Martinez on the mound for much too long, a move that allowed the New York Yankees to turn an almost certain loss into another tragic BoSox loss when Aaron Boone hit a walk off homer that sent the Yankees, instead of the Sox, to the Series.

The book also shows how the alleged Curse of the Bambino was nothing more than a fantasy dreamed up by noted (and often reviled) Boston sportswriter Dan Shaughnessy. In fact, according to Gutlon, the phrase "The Curse of the Bambino" didn't really come about until Shaughnessy wrote his 1990 book by the same name. The term was so catchy and irresistible to down-and-out Boston fans, that it soon took on a life of its own, and it remained a mythical staple in the Red Sox diet until, of course, the team finally won it all in 2004.
This is a great book, both as a history lesson and as an ode to one of the most important teams in the history of the game. Buy it. Read it. Love it.

Every die hard Red Sox fan will never forget the seventh game of the 2003 American League Championship Series... when manager Grady Little refused to remove pitcher Pedro Martinez from the game... thereby blowing a 5-2 lead... which would have probably... ended up with a win... that would have propelled the Red Sox into the World Series... instead... the ensuing loss... not only cost the Red Sox a trip to the Series... but it added on another year... to the previous EIGHTY-FIVE-YEARS... without a World Championship... and as most Sox fans would vociferously state... it also... rightfully cost Little his job.

When you have an author that writes the following: "LITTLE STUBBORNLY REMAINED IN THE SOX DUGOUT UNTIL THE GAME WAS TIED AT 5-5. BY THEN, THOSE OF US OLD ENOUGH TO REMEMBER BUCKY ("BLEEPING") DENT'S DYING-QUAIL HOME RUN OFF MIKE TORREZ IN THE INFAMOUS 1978 ONE-GAME PLAYOFF AGAINST THE YANKS WERE FRANTICALLY SEARCHING FOR THE NEAREST EXHAUST PIPE TO SUCK ON. I WAS HAVING FLASH-BACKS TO 78."... You know you have a true... die in the wool... Red Sox fan... who just happens... to also be a writer! That is the case with author Jerry Gutlon... and since the reader becomes aware of this early on in this story... it makes the historical... pain and anguish... along with some ups and downs... that the author shares with the reader... on a literary journey... through the history of the Red Sox... a little easier to take... because you are made to feel... like you're sitting in a local bar... commiserating with a fan just like you... who has had the same EIGHTY-SIX-YEAR "cursed-trip"... that was passed down from Father to son to son.

In 1990 Boston Globe sportswriter Dan Shaughnessy "penned his 1990 fairy tale, "THE CURSE OF THE BAMBINO"... and since it was a catchy phrase... it was repeated with religious like fervor throughout baseball. After all... it made great headlines. Jerry Gutlon's sole goal in this book... is to disprove this... and show the reader... that rather than a curse... the greatest enemy of the Red Sox during the EIGHTY-SIX-YEAR-DROUGHT... was their own ownership and management. The fact that it was a racist organization is hard to dispute... since they were the absolute last team in baseball to have an African American player... and that wasn't until 1959. They had a manager... Pinky Higgins... who "swore that no African-American would play for the club while he was managing." And he certainly didn't use the term African American. In fact due to local pressure from a Boston City Councilor... on October 23, 1945... ONE-HUNDRED-NINETY-ONE-DAYS before Jackie Robinson signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers... the Red Sox gave a private tryout to three black players. One was future Hall Of Famer Jackie Robinson... and another was Sam Jethroe... who would win the National League Rookie Of The Year award in 1950. The Red Sox showed absolutely no interest... and during the tryout... in a near empty stadium... a voice from up in the stands yelled... "Get those N***'s off the field!" In fact... manager Joe Cronin sat up in the stands and turned his back on the players most of the time. If that wasn't enough... in 1950 the Red Sox had "options" on any player on the Birmingham Black Barons... a Negro League team... and a scout told... now General Manager... Joe Cronin... about a "five-tool-player"... by the name of Willie Mays... Cronin supposedly remarked, "We have no use for the boy at this time."

From 1933-1976 the Red Sox were owned by Tom Yawkey... whose drinking... along with his racism... created much bigger obstacles to winning a World Championship... than any curse ever did. He tended to hire mangers and general managers... that liked to drink with him. He also overpaid ballplayers... and tended to prolong his contractual mistakes. Playing for the Red Sox in the Yawkey days... was described from racial terms... as being on the "plantation"... and from an overpaid side... as being at a "country club". "Baseball historians have confirmed that the bigotry that beset the franchise emanated from the very top" "The funny thing about the Yawkey regime is that they didn't like anybody," asserted Clark Booth. "They didn't like blacks. They didn't like Catholics. They didn't like Jews. The Anti-Defamation League brought a suit against the Red Sox in 1959 for discriminating against Jews."

The author set out on a goal of disproving the misguided catch-phrase... "The Curse Of The Bambino"... and in my opinion... he succeeded.

It took awhile before I couldn't put this book down, but had to stay up late to finish it.
As a Red Sox fan, it is great to be able to look behind the scenes. Although the author could have found better editors, I gave this a 5 star rating because the book made me a more knowledgeable fan!

Award-winning print and broadcast journalist and lifelong Red Sox fan Jerry M. Gutlon presents It Was Never About the Babe: The Red Sox, Racism, Mismanagement, and the Curse of the Bambino, a surprising and in-depth sports history chronicle about why the Red Sox really tumbled into a downward spiral after selling Babe Ruth to their rivals, the Yankees. The team's problems went much deeper than the so-called "Curse of the Bambino": owners chose managers and players based on social contacts rather than skill or talent; racism affected the team's decision-making both before and after the team was integrated; and overall the team was simply lacking in the leadership, chemistry, and raw talent to pull it out of its slump. Unearthing many a shocking historical trivia tidbit - such as the popular Tom Yawkey owned not only the Red Sox, but also a brothel for decades - It Was Never About the Babe is a thoroughly enjoyable look at the good, the bad, and the ugly of Red Sox history (and there is plenty of bad and ugly to see)!

i'm a rabid red sox fan but could not endure this middle school (and that's being charitable) prose. horrendous--don't waste your money