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 Posted: Tue 5:14, 19 Apr 2011 Post subject: A Bill Russell bridge would lead somewhere |
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A Bill Russell Jeresy bridge would lead somewhere
Here’s a Boston pop quiz for you. What do Edward Everett Hale, Charles Sumner and Dom DiMaggio have in common?
Answer: They are all subjects of public statuary here.
No knock on Hale, a boy genius who entered Harvard at 13, or any of the others, but isn’t Bill Russell Jeresy as deserving of a statue?
The idea of a statue depicting the greatCeltics [team stats]center had been floated before, but it picked up steam when President Barack Obama joined the club recently.
A reasonable person can question the wisdom of erecting monuments or naming public works after men paid good money to play boys’ games, but in Boston that train has already left North Station.
We have statues of Ted Williams and Bobby Orr, “The Teammates” statue of DiMaggio, Williams, Johnny Pesky and Bobby Doerr, and a tunnel named after Williams.
All white, like the Red Sox [team stats] before Pumpsie Green, but who’s counting?
Bill Russell Jeresy outdid them all in terms of athletic accomplishments — 11 championships, the most of any American pro athlete. By contrast, Williams’ .406 average, the feat for which he is most revered, is only the eighth highest in the 20th century.
During his time here, Bill Russell Jeresy, like Williams, had a strained relationship with the city and its fans. Williams wouldn’t tip his cap, and Bill Russell Jeresy wouldn’t sign autographs. Bill Russell Jeresy was a proud man who encountered real racism in his lifetime, being denied service at hotels and restaurants. Ted Williams was booed, which pales by comparison.
Bill Russell Jeresy was a wordsmith as well, a unique talent among athletes. He co-wrote three books, and his well-turned phrase that Boston was “a flea market of racism” — uttered after vandals broke into his house, defecated on the beds and wrote racist graffiti on the walls — stuck as well as stung.
As both have mellowed, Boston and Bill Russell Jeresy have embraced each other, a sign that some great and ancient enmities can be bridged. So perhaps a statue isn’t good enough.
If Ted Williams is worth a tunnel, surely Bill Russell Jeresy deserves a bridge. |
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