Page 250 - 1975 BoSox

’75—THE RED SOX TEAM THAT SAVED BASEBALL 243
guided nature tours can be arranged only through the DNR.
e Yawkey Foundations comprise a trust set up according to the wills of Tom and Jean Yawkey. e foundation claimed assets of $36 million in 2002, before the sale of the Red Sox brought in an additional $420 million. From 2002 through 2008, the foundation gave $230 million in aid to a variety of organizations. Areas of giving included health care, education, human services, youth and amateur athletics, arts and culture, and conservation and wildlife. In 2007 the foundation made its largest gift to date — $30 million to the Dana- Farber Cancer Institute to fund the construction of the Yawkey Center for Cancer Care in Boston. e 14-story building, located on the corner of Brookline Avenue and Jimmy Fund Way (barely a half-mile from Fenway Park), opened in 2011 and provides modern personal care to its patients.
ere are many other reminders of Tom Yawkey in and around Boston. e local amateur baseball league, rescued by a large donation from Jean Yawkey in 1990, was renamed the Yawkey Baseball League of Boston. Jersey Street, the road adjacent to the Fenway Park and its main entrance, was renamed Yawkey Way after Tom’s death. e only memorial to the Yawkeys at Fenway Park is a subtle one: his and Jean’s initials (TAY and JRY) are printed in Morse code along the side of the left- eld scoreboard.
Since his death, Tom Yawkey’s legacy has su ered. Most histories of the team written in the past few decades have focused on the team’s inability to win the World Series for 85 years (including all 43 years
of Yawkey’s ownership) and on the team’s tardiness in elding a black player. e latter obviously sullied the team’s reputation for many years, even long after his death. In Yawkey’s defense, his later teams — in- cluding the 1967 and 1975 pennant winners — featured many prominent African-American and Latino players, and there is no record that his relationship with any of his players was anything other than posi- tive. As an owner, Tom Yawkey was the team’s greatest fan. Whether this is the most appropriate role for the CEO of a business has been debated, but this was the only role Yawkey knew how to play. He loved the game and his team, and was never happier than when he watched them play and win.
Notes
1 Al Hirshberg, e Red Sox, e Bean and the Cod (New York: Waverly House, 1947), 15-17.
2 Boston Sunday Advertiser, February 26, 1933.
3 Dan Daniel, “Rambling Around the Circuit,” e Sporting News,
May 6, 1937.
4 Joe Williams, New York World-Telegram, May 28, 1938.
5 Al Hirshberg, What’s e Matter With the Red Sox (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1973), 111.
6 “Nice Guys Don’t Always Finish Last—Tom Yawkey,” thedeadballera.com/NiceGuys_Yawkey_Tom.htm, retrieved September 5, 2014.
7 Dave Condon, “Yawkey, Red Sox owner, dies at 73,” Chicago Tribune, July 10, 1976.
8 UPI, “Yawkey Died Before Sox Could Win a World Series,” Hays (Kansas) Daily News, July 11, 1976.
9 Red Smith, “Man Who Couldn’t Buy Pennants,” New York Times, July 12, 1976.