Segregation Games: Boston, Busing, and the Making of Red Sox Nation

Faflik (Transcendental Heresies), an English professor at the University of Rhode Island, overreaches in this unique study of the intertwined racial histories of the Boston Red Sox and the city’s 1970s school desegregation crisis. Antibusing protests in the city, he argues, mirrored the Red Sox’s handling of race. The team went to great lengths to deny that race entered its hiring decisions (though it was the last MLB team to field a Black player), just as opponents of state orders to desegregate public schools were quick to dismiss the perception that they were against Black people, instead claiming they wanted to preserve the “integrity” of their communities. Faflik traces the Red Sox’s racially coded fan culture, most notably through pitcher Bill Lee, who was booed at games for his support of desegregation efforts. Elsewhere, he shows how antibusing protests took on the look and feel of sports, drawing connections between pep rallies and the movement’s marches. Unfortunately, frequent instances in which ordinary objects are freighted with heavy racial symbolism—most notably the Red Sox’s official hot dog, the Fenway Frank, which the author says “became as deeply implicated in Boston’s contest over racial equality as any other aspect of the club”—feel like a stretch. The result is more of a lofty thought experiment than a successful argument. (May)