Red Sox Asks Boston To Change Name Of Controversial Street
BOSTON (AP) — The Boston Red Sox are asking the city of Boston to change Yawkey Way back to its original name, Jersey Street.
The name has been under fire for years for its connection to what the team's principal owner has said is the franchise's complicated racial past under former owner Tom Yawkey.
Yawkey Way is the street Fenway Park is on.
Yawkey owned the Red Sox from 1933 to 1976 and presided over the last franchise in Major League Baseball to field a black player. That was in 1959, more than a decade after Jackie Robinson played for the Dodgers.
The team said Wednesday that restoring Jersey Street shows that Fenway Park is "inclusive and welcoming to all."
Yawkey died in 1976. The street was named for him in 1977.
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