John Henry: once again a savior?

I grew up a Red Sox fan - a Red Sox fan who never thought she'd ever, ever, ever in a million-billion years see the Red Sox win a World Series. 

And then John Henry bought the Red Sox, and poured some serious money into the Olde Towne Team.

Which begat the miraculous, brilliant World Series win of 2004, which begat repeat performances in 2007, 2013, and 2018. And all of a sudden, the Red Sox were winners. A dynasty, sort of. In the old days, we expected the Red Sox to break our hearts. (Signs up all over local offices in 2003, when the Red Sox once again blew it: The Red Sox killed my father, and now they're coming after me.)

Thank you, John Henry.

I grew up a daily newspaper reader. When I was little - even before I could read very well - it was the funnies, but by the time I was in the middle of grammar school, it was the full newspaper. The Worcester Telegram (morning) and the Evening Gazette (afternoon). And on Sundays, along with the Sunday Telegram, the Boston Globe and the Boston Record American. 

I went to college in Boston, and started reading the Boston Globe, pretty much daily. And once I got out in the "real world," I bought the Globe every day, including Sunday. (For a long while, Sunday also meant the New York Times.) In the 1990's, the Times bought the Globe and the Telegram.

I went on reading the Globe, paying little attention to what was going on. And somewhere along the line, I moved from reading the paper paper to subscribing onilne. 

I do know that John Henry bought the Globe (for next to nothing) in 2013. I don't know if he exactly rescued it the way he rescued the Red Sox. And it's certainly true that the Globe, which used to be a great newspaper, is now a not-so-great newspaper. But when I look at how, in many cities, the paper of record is just a vague shadow of what it once was, I'd say he saved the Globe from that grim fate. 

Thank you, John Henry.

I grew up a reader of books. (Everyone in my family was a complete nose-in-the-book person. Books were all over our house. My parents were great readers. All their kids became great readers, too.) When I was four, my sister Kath taught me how to read a bit. I didn't become a fluent reader overnight, but I began putting two and two together. Those letters underneath the pictures in my Golden Books? They combined into words. And you put words together to tell a story. 

Pretty soon I was off.

I am embarrassed to say that, while I'm always reading something - often online - I don't read as many books as I used to. Up until a few years ago, I was still reading 1-2 books a week. Now it's more like 1-2 a month. As often as not, my take-to-bed, goodnight reading is the latest New Yorker or Atlantic. And I'm completely distracted by Twitter.

Still, I'm a reader. And a book buyer. And a lover of bookstores.

Sometimes I buy through Amazon, or download to my Kindle. But mostly I buy books at my wonderful local indie, the Trident Bookstore Cafe. But my main bookstores used to be in Cambridge: the late lamented Wordsworth. And the Harvard Book Store. (Nothing to do with Harvard U, by the way, other than the name and its location in Harvard Square.)

Harvard Book Store (HBS) was my husband's favorite, as it sold a lot of the sciency and philosophy-y works he preferred. But it also has an excellent fiction section, so I was always happy there. A few times a year, we'd walk over to Harvard Square, have lunch, and pop into HBS and load up. (We'd take a cab home, each carrying a half-dozen books.)

I don't get over to Harvard Square all that often, but a couple of years ago - just pre-covid - I was there and stopped into HBS. When I was checking out, they asked if I had a "frequent

reader" (or whatever they called it) membership. I told them 'no', but that my late husband had had one. They asked me his names. Sure enough... They gave me Jim's discount on my purchase. Now this is a bookstore you gotta love.

But like all indie bookstores, it's been struggling.

And then...

[John] Henry has long had an affinity for independent booksellers, and reached out to current owners Jeff Mayersohn and Linda Seamonson early on in the pandemic when he’d heard they were struggling during the shutdown. At the time, the couple had decided to continue paying their staffers even while the store was closed. And with the revenue gone from their litany of literary events — the store typically hosts over 450 readings a year — they were increasingly worried whether the business would survive.

“We had very few months of cash left,” said Mayersohn. (Source: Boston Globe - where else?)

As it turned out, HBS got some covid aid from the Feds, and an increase in customer support when the word got out that they were in trouble. But they had begun talking with John Henry, who has now made an investment.

Mayersohn and Henry did not disclose a figure. But both said it would be enough to cover the costs of renovating the store’s decades-old fixtures and updating its website, which — nearly a decade old — currently doesn’t do much to help Harvard Book Store compete with other, larger, online booksellers which will remain unnamed.

Keeping the Harvard Book Store more than afloat? Great.

Thank you, John Henry.  

When John Henry bought the Red Sox, he knew how important the team was to our community. Ditto for when he bought the Globe. He said he sees its purchase, as well as his investment in the Harvard Book Store, "as contributing to the civic good of the city." He "didn't want to see [the bookdstore] go away."

Once again, John Henry's a savior.

Thank you, John Henry.