Francona: The Red Sox Years (55 page)

The Yankees beat the Red Sox, 6–2. A day later, on national television, the Sox blew a 9–0 lead, losing 15–9. Valentine was booed every time he popped his head out of the dugout as fans continued to chant, “We want Tito!” After the stunning loss, Valentine said the Sox had hit “rock bottom.” Little did Valentine know, but there would be many more rock bottoms in 2012.

The ESPN
Sunday Night Baseball
game was rained out, saving Francona an awkward evening of dodging his old bosses on his 53rd birthday.

Lucchino understood that Francona felt betrayed and persisted in his efforts to find the leak. But there were limits. As a Yale law student, Lucchino had worked alongside classmate Hillary Rodham on the Senate Watergate impeachment committee. Lucchino rejected the notion of conducting what he termed a “Nixonian investigation.”

“That would entail a special prosecutor and literally calling people in,” said Lucchino. “I’ve never done this, tempted as I’ve been in the past to have people come in and take a lie detector test. I’ve been frustrated enough about leaks that have been damaging to me and the organizations I’ve been with and the other people in the organization, and I know how hard it is to try to identify that person.”

Lucchino believed the primary source was someone who had already left the organization.

“The people who actually do know aren’t saying it,” said Lucchino. “So I’m not sure the responsibility falls on those of us who don’t know.”

“That’s interesting coming from someone who promised to find out,” said Francona. “Maybe this will help people understand my frustration.”

The Red Sox piled up dozens of injuries and underachieved throughout the season. Valentine got himself into a jam in mid-April when he criticized the commitment of Youkilis, claiming the veteran was not “as physically or emotionally into the game” as he had been in the past. Pedroia reacted, saying, “Maybe that works in Japan or something . . . but that’s not the way we do things here.” Cherington came to the rescue of an agitated Youkilis, and Valentine apologized to the veteran.

Valentine was not happy with the constant presence of Cherington, O’Halloran, and other members of baseball operations in his office before and after every game.

“Other teams don’t do that,” the new manager grumbled as he sat in the Fenway dugout before a Sunday afternoon game in May. “It’s just one meeting after another around here.”

Watching the Boston circus from Chicago, Epstein responded to a reporter’s query with an email that read (in part), “Too bad for you nothing is going on in Red Sox land to capture a cynic’s attention. Wow. It’s even stranger to watch from afar than it was to be in the middle of it.”

When the last-place Sox visited Wrigley Field in June, Epstein looked back at the path not chosen.

“We joked about it all the time in the front office,” he said. “We’d say, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we could just say, “Screw free agency altogether. We’re going with a purely homegrown lineup. We’re going with old-school, Branch Rickey–style, pre–free agency, pre-draft, whatever.” [Will] Middlebrooks at third, Lowrie or [Jose] Iglesias at short, Pedroia at second, [Anthony] Rizzo at first, Lavarnway catching, Ellsbury in center, Reddick in right, Kalish in left.’ Wouldn’t that have been fun? We kind of clung to that in the back of our minds, knowing it was impossible, recognizing that there was an inherent tension between that approach and bigger business. I kind of kick myself for letting my guard down and giving in to it, because that might be a better team in some ways and resonate more with the fans than what we ended up with.”

Why, then, did he waste all that money?

“As far back as ’04, I kept hammering everyone internally,” said the ex-GM. “I’d say repeatedly, ‘We can’t forget what we are. We’re a baseball team. We can’t get too big. We can’t promise things that aren’t going to happen. We have to be patient.’ . . . We did fight that battle. We protected ourselves in baseball operations. We were insulated. We were in our own little environment. We did well for a long period of time, but we became too big, and then I fucked up and kind of gave in to that and didn’t execute it well, and for a period of time we lost part of our identity, and it’s hard to get back.”

Asked about the NESN survey of 2010, Epstein said, “It played into part of the reason why I thought it was time to move on.”

In the hours before the Red Sox–Cubs finale at Wrigley (another ESPN Sunday night game), Francona wandered into the cramped visitors’ clubhouse with his ESPN crewmates, greeted Youkilis with “Mazel tov,” hugged McCormick and Bogar, and managed to cajole a smile out of Beckett. Chewless, wearing a gray suit and purple tie, the ex-manager looked slightly awkward in the familiar setting.

“It was a little uncomfortable,” he said later. “I’d been with them for so long, and all of a sudden I was a visitor.”

Spotting coach Alex Ochoa holding a cup of Gatorade, Francona peered into the container and said, “Is that beer? Where’s the chicken?”

Across the room, Pedroia, sitting next to Daisuke Matsuzaka, spotted his old cribbage partner, burst out of his chair, and screamed, “Tito, you should have seen it, man. Dice came back and pitched for the first time last week. He struck out a guy in the first inning, and we were throwing the ball around the infield, and I caught it and went over to Dice and said, ‘Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!’ He should pitch with a samurai sword, man.”

It was as lively as the room had been all season. Hours later, Francona’s ESPN teammate Buster Olney characterized the Sox clubhouse as “toxic.’”

Youkilis, who’d been miserable around Valentine for four months, was traded to the White Sox in late June. He immediately went on a tear, hitting .478 with three homers and 10 RBI in the week leading into the All-Star break. The Red Sox lost eight of 11 before the break. Lucchino sent a pandering letter to season-ticket holders, reminding fans that the Sox “look forward to the return of the varsity.”

Francona came back to Fenway Park with the ESPN
Sunday Night
crew July 8 and participated in the standard manager’s briefing session with Shulman and Hershiser. It was the ex-manager’s first visit to his old office since he’d been fired. On orders from Henry, the ancient space had been totally renovated for Valentine. Plush red carpet covered the floor, the Pesky couch had been replaced with a new model, and a privacy wall had been erected to separate the skipper’s desk from the latrine.

The former Sox manager found himself surprisingly unmoved by the renovations and said little while Shulman and Hershiser peppered Valentine with questions.

“My pictures were gone, the couch was gone, and it looked so different,” said Francona. “I can’t believe they put that wall up. That’s where I did some of my best work. I conducted a lot of meetings from that bathroom. The place was completely changed and didn’t even feel like I had worked there.

“. . . For eight years I had asked them to redo that office,” he said with a chuckle. “It was the first thing I asked for at every one of those roundtable meetings. It was kind of a running joke. I’d say it, and Larry would write it down on his yellow legal pad. I guess we should have won a third World Series.”

In late July, when the Sox had an off day after flying from Texas to New York, Sox owners agreed to meet at the Palace Hotel with players who wanted to complain about Valentine. The meeting was requested via text by someone using Adrian Gonzalez’s cell phone. Players were angry that Lester had been left on the mound to take an 11-run beating against Toronto at Fenway on July 22. One player complained that Valentine had been harsh with rookie third baseman Will Middlebrooks, saying, “Nice inning, Will,” after Middlebrooks had a tough inning in the field. Players were unhappy with Valentine’s limited communication skills.

When the clubhouse mutiny was first reported by Yahoo Sports in August, the Sox were in Baltimore, the same place where everything imploded at the end of 2011. In an effort to stop the bleeding, Henry, Werner, and Lucchino made an emergency trip to Camden Yards. They tried to explain the meeting as another in their series of “roundtable” discussions, but according to Francona, in his eight years on the job there had never been a roundtable without the manager or outside of Fenway Park. A fuming Lucchino disputed Francona’s contention.

Beloved Sox ambassador Johnny Pesky died August 13. Fans reacted angrily when it was learned that only four Red Sox players took the time to attend Pesky’s funeral. That same week, the Sox fell to seven games under .500, effectively eliminating themselves from playoff consideration for a third straight season.

A poll conducted by Channel Media & Market Research revealed that 70 percent of respondents said the Red Sox had changed for the worse over the last five years. In the same poll, Boston’s baseball owners were ranked least popular among owners of New England sports teams.

Lucchino blamed the Boston media for exaggerating the ball club’s dysfunction. Werner burst into the NESN broadcast booth defending the beleaguered Sox ownership group. Henry issued a few “votes of confidence” for Valentine, then withdrew almost completely.

Rarely answering questions from reporters, the Sox principal owner also ignored multiple emails from Francona requesting cooperation for this book.

Francona’s final email to John Henry, sent in August 2012, read: “Hello John. I can’t tell you how disappointed I was that after 8 years together and what I thought was mutual respect you chose not to even respond to my email. I guess I know now where I stand with you. Good luck. Tito.”

Francona enjoyed his year in the broadcast booth, but never lost his desire to return to the clubhouse and the dugout. He loved the game too much. Throughout the summer of 2012, every time he’d walked into a big league clubhouse wearing his gray suit and purple tie he’d felt the urge to get back in uniform and peel open a can of Lancaster. When ESPN granted his request to cover the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, Francona was invigorated watching freckle-faced 12-year-olds from Goodlettsville, Tennessee, and Kearney, Nebraska.

“I love the Little League World Series,” he said. “It was always on TV in the clubhouse when I was around the big leagues. It was something I’d always wanted to attend. Everybody has got the right attitude about the game. It’s where county fair meets baseball. It’s the joy we all had when we first started playing. It’s the way baseball is
supposed
to be.”

On Saturday, August 25, the Red Sox shocked the baseball world when they traded Gonzalez, Crawford, Beckett, and Nick Punto to the Dodgers for first baseman James Loney and four prospects. The Dodgers assumed $261 million in future contract payments. It was the biggest Boston baseball trade since Babe Ruth was dealt to the Yankees in 1920, and it signaled the end of a failed era that had begun when the Sox tried throwing money at their problems after they were swept by the Angels in the 2009 playoffs. From 2009 to 2012, the Sox spent $629 million in player payroll and won zero playoff games.

The day the mega-deal was announced, Red Sox GM Ben Cherington said, “We are not who we want to be.”

The Sox lost their final eight games and 12 of their last 13. They went 7–22 in September-October. On the night the season ended at Yankee Stadium, a 14–2 loss to the Yankees, Valentine said he’d been undermined by his own coaches during the season.

Valentine went to Lucchino’s home in Brookline the following morning and met with Henry, Werner, Lucchino, and Cherington. At 12:47
PM
on Thursday, October 4, exactly 14 hours and 14 minutes after the last out at Yankee Stadium, the Red Sox issued a statement announcing that Valentine would not return for the 2013 season. This time Lucchino admitted that his manager was fired. The Red Sox hired Toronto manager John Farrell—Francona’s pitching coach in Boston from 2007 to 2010—to succeed Valentine. The Sox had to part with infielder Mike Aviles to acquire Farrell, who had one year remaining on his contract with the Blue Jays.

On Monday, October 8, Terry Francona was named the 42nd manager of the Cleveland Indians. Tito Francona, who hit .363 for the Tribe in 1959, attended his son’s introductory press conference at Progressive Field.

The circle of the baseball life was complete. Only 100 miles from where he grew up in New Brighton, Pennsylvania, Terry Francona was back in a big league clubhouse, reading scouting reports, and making friends with the clubbies.

“Managing the Red Sox was the hardest job I ever had,” he said. “And it was the best job I ever had. Now it’s time to try it somewhere else.”

Terry Francona

I want to thank my dad, who was always there for me, even when he was away playing in the major leagues. His phone calls home were always the same. He’d say, “Did you try your best? Did you have fun?” And then, at the very end of the phone call, he’d sneak in, “How many hits did you get?”

I would like to thank every coach or manager I ever had the opportunity to play for. You might have thought I was not paying attention, but I watched and listened to everything! I’d also like to thank:

Greg Fazio, New Brighton High School baseball coach and lifelong friend: For allowing me to skip study hall so I could drag the infield on rainy days so we could always play.

Jerry Kindall: For teaching me not only to play the game correctly and with respect but also to respect the people in the game.

Larry Bearnarth, Memphis Chicks: For teaching me to
never
refer to a manager as “coach.”

Felipe Alou: For making me feel fearless on the playing field.

Dick Williams: Even though your stare terrified me, I knew and respected that you were always three innings ahead of the game.

Jim Fanning: For demonstrating that you can be a nice guy and a major league manager.

Bill Virdon: Honest as the day is long, and a sense of humor that flew way under the radar.

Buck Rodgers: For having a way of making the 25th player, me, feel just as important as one of his regulars.

Jim Frey: For giving me a second chance to play in the major leagues.