Jul 21 1959:
The Boston Red Sox integrate with Pumpsie Green.
50 years ago today the integration of baseball was finally complete. Twelve years, three months and six days after Jackie took the field for the Dodgers. What took so long, Tom? Pumpsie hung around for five years after getting called up and went on to become a high school baseball coach and teacher. He's also got a Topps Rookie Cup and one of the best baseball names ever.
And just because:
4 comments:
A week later, Earl Wilson debuted with the Red Sox. Pumpsie was a year older. They both played for the Minneapolis Millers in 1959, although I don't know if they played together.
Well done.
And the Bosox refusal to integrate has more to do with the Red Sox going generations without a title then any curse.
Similarly the Phillies were also slow to add black players which also contributed to some of their miserable teams.
Pumpsie Green was recently interviewed and he talks about what it was like during that era. The link is: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/21/SPFP18RJNG.DTL
NESN Video might still have a video interview with Pumpsie from back in May.
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