All praise to Jackie Robinson, but spare a thought for Green. Imagine how much it sucked to be on the
last team to integrate. Green didn't have a Branch Rickey backing him. Green was managed by Pinkie Higgins, an old-school racist who wanted nothing to do with breaking any barriers
As Howard Bryant tells it, when Green arrived in Boston, Bill Russell took him on a tour of the city, driving him around and pointing out the "brick throwing" neighborhoods such as Southie, lest Green take a wrong turn.
For his part, Green was hesitant to be interviewed, afraid he would say something inflammatory. So reporters would ask him how he felt about race relations in Boston, and Green would give a canned non-answer. Pretty soon reporters started implying Green was dumb, since he was soft-spoken and didn't give them any good quotes.
It didn't help that Green's closest friend on the team, and one of the few white players who made him feel welcome, was Gene Conley, who was a heavy drinker, a party guy, and maybe a little crazy.
The biggest headlines Green earned in 1962 were when he and Gene Conley went AWOL, walking off the team bus as it was stuck in heavy New York traffic. It was July 26, and the team had just lost to the Yankees, 13-3, and the players were hot. They thought they might get a drink, and seem to have “done the town in style.” Conley apparently also tried to talk Pumpsie into going to Bethlehem with him “to be nearer to God.” Pumpsie preferred rejoining the team in Washington and turned up a little more than 24 hours later.
Pumpsie Green