What did Duquette bring to the organization that was progressive in terms of race relations?
Bryant: I think what he did was just look at players. He did what Dick O’Connell did. He tried to find players who could play. And that’s it. It’s really not very complicated. That’s all there is to it. If you find players who can play, if you don’t have any other agenda, you can go out and win. If you don’t have any other motivations for the acquisitions of ballplayers, you are just trying to win games. I think that’s what Dan did. And as Tony Massoratti over at the Herald has said, “Should we really be celebrating something so basic? Something that everybody should be practicing?” Which is a good question. And the answer is, “Yes, we should. Because he did it.” And if it was so basic and so elementary why did we have to wait until 1993, 1994 for him to do it? Because there was a culture here that prevented that before. So he should receive the credit for turning around the way this team looked. And by the fact that when he wanted to acquire players, he acquired them, so be it. THT: H
