Originally published August 6, 1991, by Mike Barnicle for The Boston Globe
In 1949, I saw my first baseball game at Fenway Park. I don’t recall a whole lot about it other than the fact that my father took me.
In the years since, I have wasted an awful lot of time watching the sport. Conservatively speaking, I have seen thousands of games.
Almost all have been here in the Back Bay. But, due to the fact that I am demented, I check the schedule whenever I find myself traveling between towns with major league clubs.
As a result, I’ve seen ball games in every National and American League park with three exceptions: Seattle, the new dome in Minneapolis and the hotelballpark combo that recently opened in Toronto. But I plan on being up there for the onegame Red Sox Blue Jays playoff game in October.
Now, during all the years spent sitting on my fanny watching baseball, I have only witnessed a single “racial incident.” It was outside Dodger Stadium when a group of unruly young Mexican American lads badgered and sexually taunted an outstanding looking young white woman with incredible legs and a dress that was not bought to hide them. Whew!
Thinking about it now, though, I’m not sure I’ve classified it properly. Was it racial harassment, sexual discrimination, or both? We do want to be correct.
In any event, the subject is raised because of a deeply disturbing report in yesterday’s Globe. According to researchers hired by this paper as part of a threepart effort about race and the Red Sox, only 71 black people attended Friday night’s game with Toronto out of a total of 34,032 fans.
I’m not sure what method, other than eyesight, was involved in this important social survey. For example, there is a Haitian fellow who sits in Section 16. And there is a Cuban woman I know who is at Fenway a lot and both were there Friday along with my friend Salvi, who is Italian, works for a landscaping firm and is outdoors all day and has a wicked, wicked tan and . . . well, what can I tell you? He’s pretty black.
But I’m not sure if any of them were counted by the Globe. And if they were, I’m not sure what it would mean. What’s the next step? Counting Jews, Mormons and Episcopalians out there? Keeping tabs on how many Irish Catholics have box seats? Finding out the salaries of season ticketholders?
Say 2,356 blacks were at the game the other night. Would that be cause for civic celebration? A lot of selfcongratulatory pats on the back from dogooders who look for the racial angle in absolutely everything that comes down the turnpike?
Say there were none. Would it mean we lived in the American equivalent of Johannesburg? That Boston is the most segregated city in the United States? That the Red Sox don’t like blacks and their fans make blacks feel uncomfortable and unwanted?
Look, the truth is, this is not the most racially affectionate city in America. It’s not the worst, but it’s far from the best.
There’s too much agitation here over black versus white. Too much attention paid to silly numbers that are meaningless. Too much preoccupation with race at the expense of the deeper culprits: class, money and zip code.
Blacks are a distinct minority in Boston. They have pathetic political leadership, lousy access to decent schools, live in the most victimized neighborhoods, get trimmed on services and are geographically and economically segregated by an isolated white power structure that ignores things more out of insensitivity than out of ugly racial design.
And although I’ve not witnessed a single ugly incident at Fenway Park, I’m sure there are blacks who have been made uncomfortable, even threatened, by louts for no reason other than the fact they were black. I believe this to be true because I have seen people of other colors horribly mistreated by dolts who claim to be baseball fans. It’s amazing what a few beers and a little dust will do to someone with an IQ of 25.
Tossing the Red Sox into the race/affirmative action jackpot, however, is both old news and way off the mark. Sure, they didn’t sign Jackie Robinson when they should have in 1946. Sure, blacks, and plenty of whites, too, have had bad experiences at the ballpark. And, OK, maybe there were only 71 blacks there Friday night.
No doubt, that slim figure will provide ammunition to those googoos who want the country to be all about numbers, percentages and quotas. And I’m sure they will mistakenly use the eyeballed attendance Friday to continue painting both town and team as harsh, unfriendly territory for blacks.
However, this nation isn’t merely about numbers. It’s about people, and race. And the biggest knock on the Olde Towne Team is that they’ve dropped out of the race and our people ain’t playing the way they’re supposed to. That’s what counts.
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