Rating: 
Summary: A Must Read..
Review: No student of racial history and hostility should pass up this book. Brave and forthright.
Rating:
Summary: Hardly the Curse of the Bambino...
Review: The publication of Shut Out occurs at a time when the Boston Red Sox have
just finished their first season of a new era. An era promising to right
every wrong of the past 101 seasons. The sad part is that in reading this
book we come away with the feeling that there is more to the antidote than
simply John Henry, new seats at Fenway, and the mere promise of final racial
equality for the team. Howard Bryant, while publicly a journalist covering
the rival New York Yankees, is also a black man who grew up in the city of
Boston during its most turbulent period for blacks- the school busing crisis
of the early 1970s. Bryant's journalistic talents shine brightly throughout
this well-written expose. He begins the story with a good deal of Boston
history entirely unrelated to baseball. He examines early 19th century
Boston when it was known to blacks as home to the abolitionist movement.
Tracing Boston's slow move away from perceived abolitionist leanings and into political rivalries among various groups, he shows a city ripe with
prejudice. The Boston Red Sox of the early Tom Yawkey era was very much a
club. Yawkey surrounded himself with cronies who thought very much the way
he did. While never publicly speaking out against the idea of integrated
baseball, others in his organization did. From the eloquent dodging of the
question by General Manager Eddie Collins to the very public racist comments
of Manager Pinky Higgins we learn how a team who could have been the first
in baseball to integrate, became the absolute last. A good deal of time is
given to the story of Jackie Robinson's Fenway Park tryout- predetermined to
failure and ignored by all from Joe Cronin on the field to the top ranks of
the organization. Two years later, Robinson would break the color barrier
with the Brooklyn Dodgers. In similar fashion we see the refusal of a Red
Sox talent scout to even watch the young Willie Mays, another Hall of Famer
who was Boston's for the taking, but would instead break in with the New
York Giants. The thought of Robinson and Mays playing on the field with Ted
Williams is enough to give any Sox fan chills. When in 1959 the Red Sox
finally do break the color barrier with Elijah "Pumpsie" Green, it is Ted
Williams who shows the most solidarity with the black rookie.
On a personal note, as a lifelong Red Sox fan growing up in the 1970s, the
realization of just how few black players have made the team is
disheartening. We learn of the struggles of more recent players from Reggie
Smith, to Jim Rice, to Ellis Burks, to Mo Vaughn- playing and living in
Boston. Now that the past has been publicly stated, perhaps things could
change for the future of the franchise. Let's just hope the city doesn't
hold them back for they are truly New England's team.
-Jonathan Colcord
Rating: 
Summary: An important book.
Review: This book examines the story of race and sports in Boston, the last major league city to have an integrated baseball team. The author seems to make a case that racism played a strong role in big time sports in boston and seemingly offers up a lot of evidence to support his theory. Certainly, Boston has been known for having racial problems and I think some of this certainly did carry over into professional sports but I do not think that there is ay evidence of there being a "conspiracy", so to speak, to keep teams in the city segregated or to keep minority players down. This well-written and well-researched book does examine an important subject in an interesting way but seems to overstate the case a bit.
Rating:
Summary: An important book.
Review: This book examines the story of race and sports in Boston, the last major league city to have an integrated baseball team. The author seems to make a case that racism played a strong role in big time sports in boston and seemingly offers up a lot of evidence to support his theory. Certainly, Boston has been known for having racial problems and I think some of this certainly did carry over into professional sports but I do not think that there is ay evidence of there being a "conspiracy", so to speak, to keep teams in the city segregated or to keep minority players down. This well-written and well-researched book does examine an important subject in an interesting way but seems to overstate the case a bit.
Rating:
Summary: An important book for all New Englanders
Review: This book is a painful reminder that not all Red Sox disappointment and frustration can be blamed on the "curse of the Bambino." Some is due to blatant racism. Bryant tells the story well, and with amazing restraint and balance. The fact that the Red Sox could easily have had several black stars, including Jackie and Willie, is a blot on Boston and a blot on baseball. Another new book, by outspoken liberal Bill Lee (The Little Red Sox Book) provides a glimpse of what might have been if Yawkey had seen the light - he brings Willie and Jackie and Aaron together in Boston. If only it weren't fiction...
Rating: 
Summary: Shame
Review: This book takes on an important topic: the shameful legacy of bigotry that has, and continues to, beset the Boston Red Sox baseball franchise. There is an important sense, however, in which the book itself is shameful. Its subject still matters, and it chronicles the sad, singular history of the races, the Red Sox and Boston: Tom Yawkey's myopic personnel decisions, culminating in Jackie Robinson's 1945 tryout, the impact of busing and housing integration on the team. But the conclusions are banal platitudes, and little new is revealed about the characters that are central to the theme of the Sox's awful history of racism and its connection to the team's chronic lack of success. We already knew Jim Rice was a tough interview. We already knew Bill Russell was the prophet who was without honor in his own country. We probably had a good idea that Peter Gammons was a fortunate son, and that Will McDonough was a sometimes cranky defender of Boston's well-known political and social order. We may have learned from this book a little more about how tainted "Morgan Magic" was, but I wish we learned more about Dennis "Oil Can" Boyd. His story, as much as that of Rice or Ellis Burks, may be the best illustration of the author's premise that the Red Sox franchise missed chances to succeed because they could, or more likely would, not accommodate a passionate, unorthodox approach to the game. Even greater than the tragedy of the Red Sox is the tragedy of this book, which is so flawed in its telling of an important story that it almost invites readers not to take it seriously. It contains errors of usage and syntax that ought never to appear in a published work: Charles Stuart, for example, was the beneficiary of his late wife's insurance policy, not the "benefactor." Errors of fact also appear: Cabrini Green is on the North Side of Chicago, not the South. If the author and editors cared as much about this topic as they would have readers believe, they owed us a better effort than this. That's the real shame.
Rating:
Summary: Shame
Review: This book takes on an important topic: the shameful legacy of bigotry that has, and continues to, beset the Boston Red Sox baseball franchise. There is an important sense, however, in which the book itself is shameful. Its subject still matters, and it chronicles the sad, singular history of the races, the Red Sox and Boston: Tom Yawkey's myopic personnel decisions, culminating in Jackie Robinson's 1945 tryout, the impact of busing and housing integration on the team. But the conclusions are banal platitudes, and little new is revealed about the characters that are central to the theme of the Sox's awful history of racism and its connection to the team's chronic lack of success. We already knew Jim Rice was a tough interview. We already knew Bill Russell was the prophet who was without honor in his own country. We probably had a good idea that Peter Gammons was a fortunate son, and that Will McDonough was a sometimes cranky defender of Boston's well-known political and social order. We may have learned from this book a little more about how tainted "Morgan Magic" was, but I wish we learned more about Dennis "Oil Can" Boyd. His story, as much as that of Rice or Ellis Burks, may be the best illustration of the author's premise that the Red Sox franchise missed chances to succeed because they could, or more likely would, not accommodate a passionate, unorthodox approach to the game. Even greater than the tragedy of the Red Sox is the tragedy of this book, which is so flawed in its telling of an important story that it almost invites readers not to take it seriously. It contains errors of usage and syntax that ought never to appear in a published work: Charles Stuart, for example, was the beneficiary of his late wife's insurance policy, not the "benefactor." Errors of fact also appear: Cabrini Green is on the North Side of Chicago, not the South. If the author and editors cared as much about this topic as they would have readers believe, they owed us a better effort than this. That's the real shame.
Rating:
Summary: Very Timely Book
Review: this Book unfolds a Not so Hidden Ugly Case of Racism.this book brings so many things to life about the Red Sox's.I think this Book also Explains one of the Reasons why they have been Cursed so Long from Winning it all.there has to be A Omen that still haunts them for how they have Treated there Black Athletes through the Years.Bill Russell Alone should have the City Named Half in His Name to me.this Book was very well written&on time.
Rating:
Summary: A Dose of Reality to Red Sox Nation
Review: This book will not bring back memories of the Red Sox you knew as a kid growing up. I became a Red Sox fan right around the time that the Sox brought Pumpsie Green up to the big leagues and became the last team in MLB to integrate. I had no perceptions of race and sports at the tender age of 9 and the misty memories of youth are shown a touch of reality of how the team was insulated from the integration of the sport. While we can run around and spout about "The Curse", this book explains where the true curse lies and how the team may have had the opportunity to wave a few more pennants and maybe a World Series victory after 1918 if the right social decisions had been made. But, the sometime Calvinistic instincts of Red Sox fans would be taken away and we wouldn't be able to wallow in our misery of having someone (the Yankees) or something ("The Curse") to blame for the drought of a World Series victory. Buy or read this book for some real history and not for some nostalgia of a myth.
Rating: 
Summary: NOT BAD BUT VERY REPETITIVE
Review: THIS IS AN INTERESTING BOOK AT TIMES AND VERY TRUE. THE AUTHOR SEEMS TO KEEP TELLING US ABOUT THE WORKOUT JACKIE ROBINSON HAD WITH THE RED SOX THAT WAS STAGED TO COVERUP THE TRUTH ABOUT PREJUDICE ON THE RED SOX. I GOT TIRED OF HEARING THE SAME THING TIME AFTER TIME IN THIS BOOK. ON THE GOOD SIDE HE MAKES A LOT OF POINTS WITH BILL RUSSELL, PUMPSIE GREEN, JIM RICE ETC. HE TRULY SHOWS HOW THE RED SOX HAD MANY OPPORTUNITIES SLIP THRU THEIR HANDS BECAUSE OF THEIR ATTITUDE TOWARD BLACKS. WORTH READING.
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