S11. Jackie Robinson, Boston and the Integration of Baseball

This course meets 5 times.

In 1947, Jackie Robinson, with the Brooklyn Dodgers, was the first player to break the “color line” in Major League Baseball. This historic event could have taken place in Boston, but the Red Sox lost that chance. In fact, they were the last team to have a black player when they brought up Pumpsie Green in 1959. Ever since then, there have been lingering questions about the racial policies of the team and its owner, Thomas A. Yawkey. These questions have been raised by baseball fans and by professional ball players who have expressed a reluctance to play in Boston. In February 2018, the Red Sox petitioned Boston to change the name of Yawkey Way back to its original name of Jersey Street. This course examines the events surrounding Robinson's Boston tryout and examines racial attitudes of the team and its owner, Thomas Yawkey.

Optional readings:

• 1.     Pumpsie and Progress: The Red Sox, Race, and Redemption, by Bill Nowlin (Rounder Books May 25, 2010) 978-1579401757

  
  2.     Red Sox Century: One Hundred Years of Red Sox Baseball  by Glenn Stout and Richard A. Johnson (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt January 1, 2000) ‎ 978-0395884171

David Nevard attended UMass Amherst and spent 35 years in information technology for a large corporation. From 1985 through 2002, he was editor of a baseball newsletter called A Red Sox Journal, published by the Buffalo Head Society. The newsletter is now in the collection of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY.  This course combines his interests in baseball and history. 

Since retirement, David has been an instructor at WISE and other area lifelong learning programs. David previously led the course called “Europe’s Lost and Found: Displaced Persons after World War II.”  Other History courses he has done for WISE include "Suburbia", "Berlin Wall", "Worcester Tornado", "Operation Paperclip", and "Nuremberg War Crimes Trial".