BOSTON -- Jean Yawkey, the owner of the Boston Red Sox who left a family imprint on baseball, died Wednesday, six days after suffering a stroke in her hotel apartment. She was 83.
Yawkey died at 2:30 p.m. EST at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she was taken last Thursday when security personnel at the Four Seasons Hotel found her unconscious.
The hospital said her condition gradually deteriorated and she died 'peacefully' of complications from the stroke. John Harrington, the Red Sox president, his wife, and Yawkey's friends, William and Nancy Gutfarb, were at Yawkey's bedside at the time of her death.
'This is the end of an era,' said Haywood Sullivan, one of the club's general partners. 'I've never known one family that meant so much to sports, especially baseball, and in New England to all Red Sox fans.'
Sullivan said there will be no changes in the day-to-day operation of the club.
Yawkey took over the Red Sox in 1976 following the death of her husband, Tom, who bought the club in 1933 while it was in bankruptcy. Neither he nor his wife lived to see the Red Sox win a World Series under their command. The last time Boston won baseball's championship was in 1918.
'The Yawkey family meant baseball to me growing up in Rhode Island,' said Lou Gorman, the Boston general manager. 'She really the loved the game and loved to talk baseball with me during my years with the Red Sox.'
Jean Yawkey was no figurehead owner. She kept a vigilant watch over the team through her dark-tinted glasses and had final say over all major club decisions.
The most recent one of note was last year's firing of Joe Morgan. Morgan, the popular manager, was replaced by Butch Hobson, a former Red Sox third baseman and manager of the club's minor-league affiliate in Rhode Island.
In 1983, Yawkey was elected to the 17-member board of directors of the Baseball Hall of Fame, a group her husband had belonged to for many years. She was the first woman to serve as a director of the Hall.
She attended every Red Sox home game, but remained out of the public eye. Yawkey never granted an interview.
Dr. Bobby Brown, the president of the American League, recalled a 'great lady' and a 'great baseball family.'
'The Yawkey name has been on of the leading names in our sport for seven decades,' he said. 'Jean Yawkey will be mourned by all of us and missed by all of us, but never moreso than when watching her Red Sox in Fenway Park.'
Most Red Sox players and personnel were in Winter Haven, Fla., for spring training when Yawkey died.
'It's just something you hate to see,' said Coach Johnny Pesky, a one-time Red Sox shortstop and a career man in the organization. 'The only thing you like to remember is the good things. As a person she was involved in the ball club and she carried on in the Yawkey tradition. Let's just see what happens from here.'
New hitting coach Rick Burleson, a shortstop for the Red Sox in the 1970s, remembers seeing Yawkey every day at Fenway Park, usually in her executive box.
'And I remember Mr. Yawkey back in 1975 during the World Series (lost in seven games to Cincinnati) when he was sick, and it's just a shame,' Burleson said.
Two years after taking over the club, Jean Yawkey allowed Sullivan and Buddy LeRoux to buy two-thirds of the club. The uneasy alliance fell apart in 1987 when LeRoux attempted a takeover. After a series of court battles, he had to sell his one-third stake in the club to Yawkey.
Yawkey consolidated her power by forming the JRY Corp. and appointing herself chairwoman. She named her close adviser Harrington, then treasurer of the club, to be president of JRY and to represent her when she did not attend meetings.
Yawkey, formerly Jean Hollander, was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and grew up on Long Island. She worked as a fashion model for 10 years before marrying Tom Yawkey in 1944. She was the former chairwoman of the Jimmy Fund/Dana Farber Cancer Institute and was a trustee at the time of her death.
Funeral plans were not announced.
