15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hardly the Curse of the Bambino..., November 15, 2002
The publication of Shut Out occurs at a time when the Boston Red Sox have
just finished their first season of a new era. An era promising to right
every wrong of the past 101 seasons. The sad part is that in reading this
book we come away with the feeling that there is more to the antidote than
simply John Henry, new seats at Fenway, and the mere promise of final racial
equality for the team. Howard Bryant, while publicly a journalist covering
the rival New York Yankees, is also a black man who grew up in the city of
Boston during its most turbulent period for blacks- the school busing crisis
of the early 1970s. Bryant's journalistic talents shine brightly throughout
this well-written expose. He begins the story with a good deal of Boston
history entirely unrelated to baseball. He examines early 19th century
Boston when it was known to blacks as home to the abolitionist movement.
Tracing Boston's slow move away from perceived abolitionist leanings and
into political rivalries among various groups, he shows a city ripe with
prejudice. The Boston Red Sox of the early Tom Yawkey era was very much a
club. Yawkey surrounded himself with cronies who thought very much the way
he did. While never publicly speaking out against the idea of integrated
baseball, others in his organization did. From the eloquent dodging of the
question by General Manager Eddie Collins to the very public racist comments
of Manager Pinky Higgins we learn how a team who could have been the first
in baseball to integrate, became the absolute last. A good deal of time is
given to the story of Jackie Robinson's Fenway Park tryout- predetermined to
failure and ignored by all from Joe Cronin on the field to the top ranks of
the organization. Two years later, Robinson would break the color barrier
with the Brooklyn Dodgers. In similar fashion we see the refusal of a Red
Sox talent scout to even watch the young Willie Mays, another Hall of Famer
who was Boston's for the taking, but would instead break in with the New
York Giants. The thought of Robinson and Mays playing on the field with Ted
Williams is enough to give any Sox fan chills. When in 1959 the Red Sox
finally do break the color barrier with Elijah "Pumpsie" Green, it is Ted
Williams who shows the most solidarity with the black rookie.
On a personal note, as a lifelong Red Sox fan growing up in the 1970s, the
realization of just how few black players have made the team is
disheartening. We learn of the struggles of more recent players from Reggie
Smith, to Jim Rice, to Ellis Burks, to Mo Vaughn- playing and living in
Boston. Now that the past has been publicly stated, perhaps things could
change for the future of the franchise. Let's just hope the city doesn't
hold them back for they are truly New England's team.
-Jonathan Colcord
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
At Long Last, September 12, 2002
By A Customer
Everyone in Boston knew this story for years, but until Howard Bryant decided to do the work and get it it down, it went basically untold. Top-notch reporting on a difficult subject makes this book special. It should be painful for Red Sox fans and it is, but it's also an indictment of the game - more than fifty years after Jackie Robinson baseball still has a long way to go. The truth hurts, but it shall also set you free.
His chapter on the role the media, particularly the Globe played in the story is particularly notable, as are the voices of so many of the affected Red Sox players, i.e. Earl Wilson, Pumpsie Green, Jim Rice and Ellis Burks, among others. It would have been easy to write a screed that could be easily ignored, but Bryant painstakingly pins the story to the ground, step by step. Anyone serious about baseball, fan or insider, should read this.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Curse of Yawkey and His Cronies, July 19, 2003
My rating of four stars is based on my interest level while author Howard Bryant deserves five stars for his in-depth effort on the subject of the Boston Red Sox and the racial problems that have cast a cloud over the storied franchise. The author relates the story of the farcical tryout of Jackie Robinson at Fenway Park along with two other blacks in 1945 with the Red Sox using the excuse they couldn't sign Robinson since he would have had to report to a minor league team of theirs located in the south where he would have had to deal with a segregated society. The same held true for Willie Mays who could have been patrolling center field for the Sox. Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey purchased the team in 1933 and surrounded himself with a trio of cronies and drinking buddies named Eddie Collins, Joe Cronin, and buffoon racist Mike "Pinky" Higgins. It is certainly true that racism was not limited to the Red Sox during the 1950's, but they were last in integrating their team with the signing of Elijah "Pumpsie" Green in 1959, and as long as the specter of Collins, Cronin, and Higgins were involved nothing was going to change. Yawkey, as owner was certainly no leader, as he entrusted his franchise to these three men and passively accepted their beliefs. Author Bryant also goes into detail on the experiences of Reggie Smith, Jim Rice, Ellis Burks, Dennis "Oil Can" Boyd, Luis Tiant, and Mo Vaughn during their stays in Boston. Some of the book covers non-baseball racially related incidents over the years, and how the team has suffered in trying to get free agents to sign with the Red Sox. When Pumpsie Green joined the club in '59 Ted Williams sent a strong message to teammates and other bigots by warming up with Green prior to the games. Seemingly little things like this can loom large when someone is trying to gain acceptance. Green, himself, summed things up quite well in the year 2000 by saying, "Sometimes when I think of the things people like me had to go through, it just sounds so unnecessary. When you think about it, it is almost silly, how much time and energy was wasted hating." This is not simply another baseball book, but one that provides a look into the Boston Red Sox' role in race relations involving their storied ball club. You need not be a fan of the Bosox, I'm not, to enjoy the book.
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