Francona: The Red Sox Years (2 page)

Francona was never a World Series MVP or American League Manager of the Year. In the autumn of 2004, he went mano a mano with Mike Scioscia, Joe Torre, then Tony La Russa, and he came out on top in each series, but he stayed in the background. There wasn’t a lot of credit for the manager of the Red Sox, nor was there much space for him on the victory platform. There were no Gatorade showers or magazine covers. The best he could do was an endorsement for Metamucil—which made him the ultimate regular guy. He was just the man who put his players in position to succeed and let their skills take over. He was the master of preparation and people management. When others told him that he probably would have made a good corporation manager, he’d deflect the praise and refer to himself as a “dumb-ass.”

But deep down, he knew he could handle all of it. He knew that he was always prepared. Nobody could take away the baseball lessons he’d learned in five decades around big league clubhouses. It was his style to present himself as less than brilliant, but that was part of the ruse. Everybody who was paying attention could see that other managers never got the better of him. The Red Sox had the right guy in the dugout.

Francona managed the Sox for seven more seasons after 2004, never changing his style. He’d get to the ballpark absurdly early, pore over voluminous reports from Epstein’s baseball operations department, work out in the clubhouse Swim-Ex, talk strategy with his coaches, and have all of his work done by the time the ballplayers started showing up for duty. If the owners wanted to show the clubhouse off to their friends, he’d grudgingly submit to the meet-and-greet. He’d be grateful if the suits didn’t bring anyone into his office when he was half-naked. He’d patiently submit to questions from the Boston media three hours before every game, and again after every game. A lot of time was spent diffusing combustible situations. Everything the Sox did mattered. Nothing was too trivial to draw the scrutiny of talk shows and newspapers.

“I got to where I hated the traffic lights when I was driving to the ballpark,” said the Sox manager. “The guy in the car next to me always had something to say and didn’t feel like he had to hold back. When we weren’t going good, those red lights seemed to last forever.”

It isn’t like this anywhere else—not even in Philadelphia, where Francona managed for four sub-.500 seasons. Boston is a smaller town, and the Red Sox are a religious experience for local fans. Columnist Mike Barnicle summed it up when he wrote, “Baseball is not life or death, but the Red Sox are.” This is why years spent managing the Red Sox are like dog years. They age you disproportionately. Those before-and-after photos of US presidents looking young and vigorous on Inauguration Day, then tired and gray four years later? It was the same with the men who worked in the small corner office of the Red Sox clubhouse.

During his eight seasons in Boston, Francona occasionally allowed himself to wonder what it would be like elsewhere. He’d eavesdrop on one of Joe Maddon’s sessions with the South Florida media and gasp at the easy tone of the questions. He’d see Toronto Blue Jays players almost come to blows on the mound in midgame and be amazed when the incident was buried in the local papers. He knew it would have been front-page stuff in Boston.

But those moments of longing for hardball tranquillity always passed. Managing in Boston was better, even if it was an ass ache much of the time.

What he loved most was the baseball. The games. During those three-plus hours when the team was on the field and he was in the dugout, Francona could escape the madness and immerse himself in the game he loved.

His favorite time of every day was the half-hour he’d spend in the dugout before the first pitch at Fenway. That was when the media was gone and all the preparation was over. It was just the manager, his coaches, and the band of hungry players who’d come out early to banter in the quiet time before the television camera’s red light went on and quick decisions had to be made. It was a time when a manager could talk to players apart from the heat of the moment. It was a time to set up shop and get ready for the game. Francona would align three water bottles under the upper dugout bench perch—a spot where he could best watch and manage the game. He’d tape his matchup sheet to the pegboard on the dugout wall and hide his stash of Lancaster chew behind wads of bubblegum that had been unwrapped by clubhouse worker Steve Murphy. He’d sign a few autographs for folks in the rows directly behind the Sox dugout. That always ended the same way. Frenetic fans tossed baseballs toward him, and sooner or later someone would hit him in the chest while he was signing a ball. That would be the end of the signing session. The offending fan—the one who ruined it for everyone—invariably was an adult.

None of his players or coaches was required to be in the dugout in the golden half-hour before the first pitch, but Francona always knew he had a good team when there were a lot of ballplayers hanging around in those quiet minutes of pregame.

“I loved that time,” he said. “That’s when they haven’t made an out, they haven’t made an error yet. You can get a guy in the dugout 20 minutes before the game starts, and they are pretty loose. Once the game starts, you can’t have that conversation anymore. It’s a great time to talk to people, and I loved it.”

The white noise of Boston only got louder in the years after the championships of ’04 and ’07, and ultimately the players stopped taking care of each other and abused their freedom. The 2011 season unfolded like many of the earlier Francona years as the Sox played 39 games over .500 for four months and came into September with the best record in baseball. But it was not like the other years. Veteran players David Ortiz, Tim Wakefield, and Jonathan Papelbon—warriors of championships past—worried about their next contract and got caught up in ancillary issues. An injured Kevin Youkilis had trouble dealing with his inability to contribute. Carl Crawford, an underachiever all year after signing a whopping, seven-year, $142 million contract, never performed like the player who tortured Boston when he played for Tampa Bay. Worst of all, pitchers Josh Beckett, John Lackey, and Jon Lester seemed to lose their focus, sometimes drinking beer and eating chicken in the clubhouse instead of staying in the dugout to encourage teammates. Players who at one time were mature enough to police themselves suddenly were in need of a managerial taskmaster. Francona opted not to change the style that had produced an average of 93 wins per season in his eight years in the Boston dugout.

“I think the chicken-and-beer stuff turned out to be more of a metaphor for our team,” said Francona. “I can guarantee that these guys drank less beer than a lot of other teams. I was most disturbed by the idea that stuff wasn’t staying in the clubhouse. They weren’t protecting each other. If somebody was drinking, they weren’t drinking a lot. I’m not saying it’s right, but I was more disturbed by our lack of unity. That group, they had gained my trust. Well, they probably took advantage of it in the end. They needed a new voice.”

While the Sox were unraveling like a ball of yarn bouncing down stairs, Francona was dealing with difficult personal issues. He was living in a hotel, separated from his wife of almost 30 years. His body was ravaged by more than 30 surgeries from his playing days, and he relied on pain medication to keep himself game-ready. He was worried about his son, Nick, who was commanding a sniper platoon in Afghanistan, and his son-in-law, who was dismantling homemade bombs in Afghanistan. He kept his cell phone handy in the dugout, in case there was news from Nick or one of his daughters.

But he was the same manager he’d been the whole time in Boston. He knew it would be phony to suddenly change his ways. He knew that it would send a message of panic if he started playing drill sergeant. After seven years and five months of steady success, he wasn’t going to change his style. But he knew he no longer had the backing of ownership. The vaunted trio of John Henry, Tom Werner, and Larry Lucchino hadn’t triggered his contract option and seemed more concerned about selling the Red Sox brand and making money than about winning championships.

Nothing could stop the September slide of 2011. The Sox, plagued by horrendous starting pitching, lost 20 of their final 27 games, blowing the biggest September lead in major league history. When they were eliminated by a wacky series of events in the midnight hour of the final night of the regular season, Francona knew it was time to go. He had little choice in the matter. Ownership was going in a new direction. It was all coming apart. Brilliant GM Theo Epstein was seduced by the Chicago Cubs, and some of Francona’s trusted ballplayers didn’t seem to have their heads in the right place anymore.

“There’s one thing I’m going to be proud of after I’m gone,” Francona said in the days after it ended. “I think they’re going to find there’s more shit that goes on than they realize.”

A lot went on in eight years at Fenway. The sellouts, pink hats, parades, and renditions of “Sweet Caroline” were fun. Putting out fires and dealing with a complex and needy cast of characters was a daily challenge. But none of it could take anything away from what happened on the field. The baseball was always the best part.

CHAPTER 2

A
BASEBALL LIFE
is a life of interminable bus trips, tobacco spit, sunflower seeds, rain delays, day-night doubleheaders, and storytelling. There’s a lot of standing in the outfield, shagging fly balls, and swapping lies. No life in sports has more downtime, more loitering, more waiting. The old salts tell the hungry young bucks not to get too high or too low. And always stay within yourself . . . whatever that means. The season is simply too long for daily reaction and analysis. It’s not like football, a violent, self-important game that demands that you hit yourself over the head with a mallet for six days if you should happen to lose on any given Sunday. Baseball doesn’t attach too much importance to any single game. If you lose today, you go back out there and get ’em tomorrow. There’s always a chance for instant redemption. Hall of Fame skipper Earl Weaver knew what he was talking about when he said that the best part about baseball was that “we do this every day.”

When you grow up the son of a major league ballplayer and dedicate your life to playing, then coaching and managing baseball teams, you appreciate the slow, steady pace of the game. You also create a worldwide network of teammates, coaches, and associates who keep finding you, sometimes years after you think you’re done with them. This is how it’s always been for Terry Francona.

When he was eight years old, Francona met Joe Torre, who was then a star catcher with the Atlanta Braves and a teammate of outfielder Tito Francona. Thirty-seven years after their initial meeting, Torre would come back into Francona’s life as a worthy adversary in the Red Sox–Yankee rivalry of the 21st century.

When he was 11 years old, Francona met Ted Williams, the best player in the history of the Boston Red Sox, perhaps the greatest hitter who ever lived. Decades later, Francona would drive past a statue of Williams on his way to work every day at Fenway Park.

When he fulfilled a lifelong dream and played in the big leagues, Terry Francona’s first manager was Dick Williams—the man who skippered the most important Red Sox team of the 20th century, the 1967 “Cardiac Kids.” In the 21st century, Francona would become the greatest Red Sox manager since Dick Williams.

When his playing days were over and he became a coach and manager, Francona roomed and carpooled with a minor league lifer and cotton farmer named Grady Little. Eleven years after they were roommates, Little made a decision that altered the lives of millions of Red Sox fans and paved Francona’s path to Boston.

Even some of the ballparks represented a thread. Terry Francona was a seven-year-old kid in the stands when the St. Louis Cardinals dedicated their spectacular new stadium in 1966. Sixteen years later, Francona’s promising big league career was derailed when he tore up his knee chasing a fly ball on Busch Stadium’s warning track. In 2004 Francona stood on the same field as manager of the World Champion Boston Red Sox. Now the place is gone, torn down to make room for a better model.

That’s the baseball life. You get hired or fired by guys who played with, or against, your dad. Your college teammate, Brad Mills, is back at your side in the dugouts in St. Louis and Colorado when you win World Series for the Red Sox. Buddy Bell, your roommate with the Reds, brings you back into baseball as a coach when your playing days are over. Ken Macha, a fellow western Pennsylvanian who befriends you when you are about to be released by the Montreal Expos in 1986, rescues you from the depths of depression when blood clots almost take your life in 2002. John Farrell, another big league teammate, comes back into your life as your pitching coach and eventually succeeds you as manager of the Red Sox. Billy Beane, the man drafted one spot behind you in 1980, becomes famous as the
Moneyball
GM, then serves as your boss when you coach under Macha. When Beane turns down an offer from the Red Sox in 2002, the Sox turn to 28-year-old Theo Epstein, who hires you as the 44th manager of the Boston Red Sox. Ellis Burks, the center fielder who caught the ball you hit in your final big league at-bat, becomes one of your trusted clubhouse guys when you win the first World Series with the Red Sox in 2004.

They are baseball brothers, and they weave in and out of your life—on the diamond, in the dugout, and in the back rows of buses and airplanes.

Terry Jon Francona was born on April 22, 1959, in Aberdeen, South Dakota, where his dad, Tito, had met Roberta Jackson when he was a young outfielder in the Baltimore Orioles farm system in 1953. Roberta (always known as “Birdie”) wasn’t allowed to date ballplayers, but her brother-in-law, outfielder Zeke Strange, was Francona’s minor league manager, and that connection allowed an exception to the rule. Tito and Birdie married in 1956 after Tito’s rookie year with the Orioles. By the time their first child was born, Tito was emerging as a star outfielder with the Cleveland Indians. He hit .363 with 20 homers and 79 RBI for the Tribe in 1959. An armchair psychologist would submit that the birth of his only son moved Tito to have his best year in the bigs. In 14 other major league seasons, he never hit anything close to .363.