Boston Red Sox Christmas Past

Did you know that Christmas was banned in Boston?

Seriously. As most Americans know, the New England area, during the pilgrim era, was filled with Puritans, who saw any frivolity as a sign of evil. The religious sect did not like Christmas because of multiple factors. All of the drinking and play, instead of working, rubbed the Puritans the wrong way, especially since Christmas was an ‘Old World’ custom, with its own questionable methods. Since the English were already putting pressure on the New Englanders to conform to the old ways, the move to make the customs illegal was likely a political one. “The more pressure the English king exerted on the colonists, the more they resisted. In 1659, the ban became official. The General Court banned the celebration of Christmas and other such holidays at the same time it banned gambling and other lawless behavior, grouping all such behaviors together” (Massachusetts Travel Journal). The law lasted 22 years and the frowns upon the custom lasted even longer, well into the late 1800s. Boston Strong had a completely different meaning.

Yet, this moral high ground mixed with rebellious severity, ironically, laid the foundation for the people of Boston, the community involvement, and Red Sox Nation.

In fact, Christmas and Boston are eternally linked in other ways. The first Christmas card made in the United States was in 1875 by Louis Prang, an immigrant printing press operator and entrepreneur in Boston. Chron.com’s Daniel Gifford claims that Christmas cards were possibly the first social media in America:

"“Christmas postcards created a visual conversation between Americans that was unique because it was also very public. They were in many ways a forerunner of today’s impulse to post selfies and holiday pictures on social media. A postcard was always on display-from the rack in the drugstore to its final destination. And those billions of snowy landscapes and bag-toting Santas revealed much of what was on people’s minds at the height of the Progressive Era.”"

Prang and other Bostonians saw a need for communicating their love of the season and giving, then translated that into becoming the forefront of a public movement.

That prominence in public communication and rebelliousness against the status quo is in the heart of the Boston people. Like Tiny Tim, from Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol, a boy named Jimmy changed the fate of Boston forever. The funny thing was that ‘Jimmy’ was just a name used to shelter the boy’s real identity. Twelve-year-old Einar Gustafson was receiving treatment for cancer in 1948, when he was picked to speak on the live broadcast of Truth or Consequences. Einar, or ‘Jimmy’, said that all he wanted to do was watch his favorite team, the Boston Braves on television, but he had no device to see them. “The show ended with a plea for listeners to send contributions so Jimmy could get his TV set. Not only did he get his wish, but more than $200,000 was collected and the Jimmy Fund was born” (jimmyfund.org).

It is amazing how the love of America’s pastime can be used for such beneficial and morally-justifiable work. The charity continued to be closely linked to the baseball team, where Braves owner Lou Perini “kept the team involved through player appearances and radio appeals during games. The dollars they raised helped pay for the 1952 completion of the state-of-the-art Jimmy Fund Building for research and patient care” (jimmyfund.org). However, when Perini was going to move the team, as attendance was dwindling, he did not want the charity to end with their departure. He asked the owner of another Boston baseball team, the franchise that won five World Series Championships and the hearts of New Englanders, to take over the good work. “On April 10, 1953, [Tom] Yawkey announced that his team would adopt the Jimmy Fund as its official charity and continue the tradition started by the Braves” (jimmyfund.org). The Red Sox have been linked with the charity ever since.

Many sports franchises do charitable donations and other contributions, but The Jimmy Fund’s relationship with the Red Sox is more than that. It is the most visual of a link between a franchise and a charity in all of professional sports. “Although Yawkey had banned advertising from Fenway Park in the 1950s, he made an exception for the Jimmy Fund for 30 years. For more than 50 years, the massive Jimmy Fund sign that was perched on the right field roof above the club’s retired numbers was the only billboard in the stadium” (jimmyfund.org). That billboard still exists today. That showed commitment to what matters most. Ted Williams, possibly the greatest Red Sox player of all time, already supported the charity, but now the entire Red Sox organization was behind him, too. Of course, it made the Red Sox look good to help the public, but Yawkey could have turned into Ebenezer Scrooge and thought advertisement billboards would have been more profitable. At the time, pediatric cancer had very low survival rates, and people assumed that if a child had cancer, then the child was a lost cause. Instead, Yawkey and The Jimmy Fund did not see it that way. Yawkey burst through the status quo, like Perini, and did what he thought was best for the city of Boston and children everywhere. That is what you do to quell the turn of the tide. You stand up and say this will not stand. That is what made Boston one of the best cities in the world.

After the Yawkey era, the new ownership group has stayed very loyal to that original commitment. “In the words of [Larry] Lucchino, team president and CEO, as well as a former patient at Dana-Farber: ‘The Red Sox are part of the fabric of this city and the Jimmy Fund is an inseparable part of the Red Sox'” (jimmyfund.org). The Puritans, Prang, Perini, Yawkey, the Boston Red Sox, Red Sox Nation, and other New Englanders over history have shown that the rebellious nature and morality still mix in the Massachusetts blood. It makes them all connected and woven into the fabric that Lucchino described.

These people, whether their intent or not, made the foundation for ‘Christmas’ to happen every day for the children who need hope in their darkest hours. Einar ‘Jimmy’ Gustafson survived cancer, and even had grandchildren, because he was given hope when he needed it. As today is December 25th, remember the past, remember how Boston said no to English rule, remember how an immigrant changed the course of American culture, remember how two business owners forgot to maximize their profits for the benefit of giving hope to a child, remember the team who said no to cancer. If you do not celebrate Christmas, be safe this holiday season and remember the country that fought to give you that right. For the rest of you who do, whether from Red Sox Nation or not, as Tiny Tim once said, “God bless us, everyone!”

*** For more information on The Jimmy Fund, go to www.jimmyfund.org