They had 11 kids and they were all black, almost as if they wouldn't let this happen to little white boys."
Jerry Sandusky appears to only be the latest inauthoritative sports figures who’ve taken advantage of young boys in theircare. Donald Fitzpatrick, a long timeclubhouse manager for the Boston Red Sox, molested several boys between 1971and 1991 in Winter Haven, Florida, where the team held its spring training.
"He grabbed me and told me to take my clothesoff," Leeronnie Ogletree. "I'll never forget him putting his mouth onmy penis. I don't mind telling it now because I'm over it. But that stands out.And I'll never forget it."
Ogletree says that Fitzpatrick put his mouth on the boy’spenis.
The truth didn’t come out on Fitzpatrick until 2003 when theRed Sox settled a $3.15 million federal lawsuit brought against them byOgletree and seven other young men who were molested by the manager.
Benjamin Crump, the attorney who handled the Ogletree caseagainst the Red Sox, said that there were quite a few similarities between thisand the Penn State situation. There werecover-ups, denials, and the door was open for pedophiles to be in dominant positionsto take advantage of “poor black boys.”
"You have these sports institutions; you have all thesepeople of authority; you have all this public support for these institutionsand hear talk about what great institutions they are, but then when you askthem to do the right thing and have compassion for these young people, theinstitutions deny, deny, deny," said Crump. "They sweep it under therug and they look the other way."
Players found out what the manager was doing, and would warnkids to stay away from him. When thekids came forward to the team, they covered it up in the same manner as PennState. The team did not alert theauthorities or fire Fitzpatrick.
"These kids came from impoverished backgrounds and manytimes, no father. Fitzpatrick used that to his advantage and preyed on thesekids that were poor," Crump said. "The one thing that I do think isnot similar to the Penn State situation is that with the Boston Red Sox case,they had 11 kids and they were all black, almost as if they wouldn't let thishappen to little white boys."
