Contributed by Ryan Wheeler
Early this summer we learned from our friend and colleague David Shane Lowry about the Red Sox Native American & American Indian pride night at Fenway—purchasing tickets for the game on August 6 included a Native theme jersey, with some proceeds supporting Native American Lifelines.
According to the Red Sox website, “The jersey design is inspired by Eastern Woodland ancestors whose names were once known, and contemporary Native artists Sage Carbone and Brittney Walley. The back of the jersey features “Shawmut” on the name plate, derived from the Algonquian word “Mashauwomuk” which refers to present-day Boston.”
Along with the jersey, which my son and I were excited about, pre-game activities included a drum circle and on-field recognition of about 30 local Native American leaders and educators.
It was a good game against Kansas City, despite a rare Red Sox loss this season. The Native theme night got me wondering about Native Americans and the Red Sox, and baseball in general—beyond Jim Thorpe.
After a little research, I learned a lot—for example, recently Traci Sorell and Arigon Starr published a graphic novel Contenders: Two Native Baseball Players, One World Series, which tells the true story of John Meyers and Charles Bender, who in 1911 became the first Native baseball players to face off in a World Series. There’s a great academic article by Jeffrey Powers-Beck that explores the history of Native Americans and baseball, which begins with Louis Francis Sockalexis in 1897—decades before Jackie Robinson broke the color-barrier in MLB. About 50 Native American tribal citizens who have or continue to play baseball, as well as many others with Indigenous heritage—Baseball Almanac has a list: https://www.baseball-almanac.com/legendary/american_indian_baseball_players.shtml
Charlie Vascellaro’s 2012 article The Real Indians of Baseball explains that Indian boarding schools—including the infamous Carlisle Indian Industrial School—added baseball to their curriculum and produced many of the Native American players in the minor and major leagues. As Tribes and families continued to resist forced removal of children and the boarding school era waned, fewer Native players joined MLB. Looking at the Baseball Almanac list, almost all Native players played games before 1950, with a minority playing since then. Many were nicknamed “chief,” and in some cases became the models for derogatory team names, like the Cleveland Indians (now the Guardians), inspired by Penobscot player Louis Sockalexis.
And what about the Red Sox? Well, I was delighted to learn that Jacoby Ellsbury played for the Boston Red Sox from 2007 through 2013. An enrolled member of the Colorado River Indian Tribes, Ellsbury is the first Native American of Navajo descent to play Major League Baseball. Jacoby Ellsbury played for the Sox in two World Series appearances, winning the championship in both 2007 and 2013. After signing with the New York Yankees, several injuries and a contract dispute sidelined Ellsbury in 2019. According to NDNsports.com, Ellsbury was recently elected to the Oregon State Athletics Hall of Fame—his home state—and despite some truly impressive stats and records, missed the 2024 vote for the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
We look forward to the next Native pride event at Fenway and wearing our jerseys to the next game. Play ball!
Further reading
Powers-Beck, Jeffrey. ‘Chief’: The American Indian Integration of Baseball, 1897-1945. American Indian Quarterly 25, no. 4 (2001): 508–38. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1186015.
Vascellaro, Charlie. The Real Indians of Baseball. American Indian Magazine 13, no. 2 (2012): https://www.americanindianmagazine.org/story/real-indians-baseball
Sorell, Traci (author), Arigon Starr (illustrator). Contenders: Two Native Baseball Players, One World Series. (2023). Kokila, https://www.amazon.com/Contenders-Native-Baseball-Players-World/dp/0593406478
The Peabody 