Yawkey Way renaming: Red Sox not opposed to change just outside of Fenway Park

The Boston Red Sox will talk to the team’s Fenway neighbors in the next few weeks about renaming the stretch of Jersey Street just outside of Fenway Park known as Yawkey Way since 1977.

That was when it was renamed in honor of Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey, who died the year before.

Yawkey owned the Sox from 1933 until his death. Under his ownership, the team was the last in Major League Baseball to integrate—in 1959, 12 years after Jackie Robinson pioneered the process with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Yawkey himself is said to have screamed a racial epithet at Robinson during a tryout at Fenway in 1945.

Given the recent deadly mayhem in Charlottesville, Virginia, that white supremacists sparked over a statue of Robert E. Lee and the subsequent imbroglio over Confederate monuments, Red Sox officials want to toss “Yawkey Way” in favor of something more inclusive and fun.

John Henry, the team’s owner, has suggested naming the stretch after recently retired Red Sox great David Ortiz.

What’d you think?

• John Henry wants the Red Sox to ‘lead the effort’ to rename Yawkey Way [Globe]
• ‘Haunted’ by past owner's history, Red Sox seek name change for Yawkey Way [Herald]
• Red Sox owner wants Boston to rename street near Fenway tied to team's racist history [SB Nation]
• Massachusetts’ Confederate memorial is the only one in New England [Curbed Boston]