Francona: The Red Sox Years (31 page)

“You set out to win, but I never wanted to sacrifice our chances of winning the World Series,” said Francona. “I always tried to keep the big picture in mind. My job was to put us in position to win a World Series.”

The Red Sox steamrolled the Angels in the American League Division Series. Beckett, baseball’s first 20-game winner in two years, won the opener, 4–0, retiring 19 consecutive batters after surrendering a single to the first hitter he faced. He threw only 108 pitches. In the 2007 playoffs, he was 4–0 with a 1.20 ERA, 30 strikeouts, and two walks. The Sox won his postseason starts by an aggregate 34–5.

“I had a lot of confidence going into it,” said Beckett.

“Every time Josh was on the mound, we knew we were going to win,” said Pedroia. “He could have gotten anybody out. Barry Bonds in his prime? It wouldn’t matter.”

The Game 1 loser was John Lackey, a man who would play a major role in Francona’s final two seasons in Boston.

Ortiz and Ramirez hit .533 with four homers and seven RBI in the Sox sweep of the Angels. They were at the height of their powers and had agreed on Ortiz hitting third and Manny at cleanup. The manager let them think it was their decision.

“Early on, both of ’em wanted to hit third,” said Francona. “And then both of them wanted to hit fourth. I would bring them in together, and we’d talk about it. I’d say, ‘I know you both want to hit third. You can’t.’ I knew the way I wanted it to work, because I thought Manny protecting David was good. Manny would never go out of the strike zone, so if he hit fourth, it was good. But I wanted them to embrace it. Buddy Bell told me once that I’m sneaky like that—that I can get my way without making it seem like I’m getting my way. And this worked with Manny and David. It was better if they had input and thought it was their idea. They felt like they were part of it, and they were both happy. If you can get the players to think that they’re the ones making the decisions, you’re way ahead of the game. The idea is to create an atmosphere where the players want to do the right thing. It’s like dealing with your kids.

“David batting third and Manny fourth was perfect. I can’t imagine what it was like for other teams when they scouted us. How do you get through both of those guys? That’s how good they were.”

“Manny was more complicated than me,” said Ortiz. “To me, it didn’t matter. I thought Manny was more of a cleanup hitter than me. He was more patient and chased bad pitches less than me. He would take his walks. I was more aggressive. Sometimes he wanted to hit third, and I told him, ‘Go ahead.’ It was easy between him and me. Tito let us decide where we wanted to be, and that wasn’t a problem.”

After dismissing the Angels, the Sox faced Cleveland. Beckett won the opener with another dazzling effort, but then the Red Sox lost three straight to the Tribe.

Ortiz called a players-only meeting after the Game 4 loss in Cleveland.

“I just wanted everybody to be positive,” said Papi. “I told them that it wasn’t over. Lots of times it’s better to have those meetings between players, without coaches. When a player calls you out, it’s different than when a coach calls you out. Those meetings weren’t about calling people out. It was to remind us to stop chasing pitches and make better pitches and execute the right way in the right situation.”

With the Sox down 3–1, Francona was taking a lot of heat. He was criticized for keeping Pedroia (hitting .188 through four games) atop the lineup and for sticking too long with Crisp.

His decision to start Wakefield instead of Beckett in the fourth game was roundly criticized. Francona had asked Beckett about the possibility of pitching the crucial game on three days’ rest. Beckett told the manager that he would pitch on short rest, but would be much better on normal rest.

“Tito and I had an agreement,” said Beckett. “I just pitched when he told me to pitch. I didn’t like that to be in my hands. I don’t really tell somebody whenever I want to pitch. If he had told me to pitch earlier, I would have pitched earlier.”

“Beckett was ready to be Beckett,” reasoned Francona. “That’s all I needed to hear. I never could figure out why people made such a big deal out of it. I wasn’t giving up Game 4, but we need to win four games. Using Beckett early wasn’t going to help us win four games.”

Francona went with Wakefield in Game 4, and Wake pitched into the fifth inning, when Cleveland scored seven times. The Tribe’s 7–3 victory put the Red Sox on the brink of elimination. Francona was roasted in print and on the air.

Postgame, after facing the cross-examination of the media, Francona went back to his manager’s office at Jacobs Field and started getting dressed for the bus to the team hotel. He was surprised to find ESPN’s Tim Kurkjian sitting on the couch in his office. He didn’t know Kurkjian particularly well.

“How’s it going,” said Kurkjian.

“Okay,” said a suspicious and agitated Francona. “What can I do for you?”

“I just wanted you to know that I agree with what you did, starting Wakefield,” said Kurkjian. “There are people who would have liked it if I ripped you, but I didn’t want to do that because I didn’t believe you were wrong.”

Francona felt a little better. He knew he was going to have a rough day and a half before the start of Game 5 in Cleveland.

“I understand fans and media second-guessing,” he said. “I’m a fan. I do it. I just wish people would remember that we know things about the team that they maybe don’t know. I have more information than anybody. And it’s my job to know my team.”

Beckett didn’t need any extra incentive, but the Indians provided it when they produced one of his old girlfriends, country singer Danielle Peck, to sing the anthem before Game 5.

“I was out in the bullpen with him while he was warming up, and she was on the field, getting ready to sing,” said Farrell. “Fans were hanging over the rails, teasing him about his girlfriend. Just when it got quiet and she started to sing, Josh looked over at me and said, ‘You know, for the record, I broke up with her.’ I was pretty sure then that he was going to be okay.”

Beckett beat the Tribe, 7–1, to send the series back to Boston.

“That was Tito at his best,” said Farrell. “He believes in a natural cycle to the game, and he really took exception when there was talk about changes in the rotation. He fought that and felt strongly about it. I think it goes back to our relationship when we were teammates in Cleveland. He got to understand the mind-set of a pitcher. The five-day routine, how ingrained they are in their routine and what day of the week it is, and he was a staunch believer that everyone who goes to the mound is going to have to pitch well if we are going to win. Moving Beckett up went against every fabric of him as a manager and how he views pitching. He was dead set against moving a guy up. He felt strongly about never disrupting a rotation.”

Games 6 and 7 were Red Sox blowouts, 12–2 and 11–2. The highlight of Game 6 was a first-inning, two-out grand slam by J. D. Drew.

In the eyes of many Sox fans, Drew saved his season with the slam.

“We were getting ready to let them off the hook,” said Francona. “We’d had the bases loaded and nobody out, then there were two outs. It was nice having J.D. in a situation like that. You knew it wasn’t going to overwhelm him. He wasn’t going to lose any sleep over it one way or the other. When he hit it, zero turned into four. It changed everything about that game.”

The Fenway lawn party after Game 7 was long and wild. It would be the final Fenway postseason celebration of Francona’s eight years in Boston. It was Papelbon’s Riverdance II; this time the Big Galoot wore swimming goggles to spare his eyes from the champagne spray.

“That was a real celebration,” said Francona. “It was legit. We beat a good team. When I went out to the field the second time and saw Pap out there doing his thing again, I knew it was time to go home. It was cold, and we were all sticky from the champagne. Theo and all of his guys were in my office. On my way out the door I said, ‘Pookie [veteran clubhouse worker Edward ‘Pookie’ Jackson], if I come back here tomorrow and my office is torn up, I’m blaming you.’”

When Francona met with his staff before the World Series, there was a lot of debate about Coco Crisp versus Jacoby Ellsbury in center field. Crisp had made a sensational catch to close out the American League Champion Series, but injured his knee on the play. He hit only .200 in the ALCS.

“That was a hard one for me,” said Francona. “Sometimes you are just not sure. It looked like Ells was going to get hot, and there was a lot of push to have him play. I felt like starting Coco was the right thing to do. I had DeMarlo Hale call Coco, and Coco said his knee hurt, so that was that. By the end of the Series, Coco was telling us he was ready to play, but Ells was on fire by then. We couldn’t take him out.”

Ellsbury had been called up to the bigs in July and hit .353 in 33 games. A 2005 first-round pick out of the University of Oregon, he was one of the blossoming stars of the new regime. A rare combination of speed and power, he was successful on nine of nine stolen base attempts in his abbreviated 2007 run in the majors. He was also believed to be the first Native American of Navajo descent to make it to the majors. When they were thinking of drafting Ellsbury, the Cleveland Indians had asked him if he was offended by the “Chief Wahoo” logo that dotted every team cap. Ellsbury said he was not offended.

Epstein and baseball ops were thrilled to have Ellsbury contributing at such a big moment. Francona felt the same way. The Sox were on a roll, just as they had been in 2004, but this time they were doing it with eight homegrown talents, players who presented as thoroughly professional.

The Colorado Rockies had won ten straight and 21 of 22 when they came to Boston for the 103rd World Series. It didn’t matter. There was no stopping the Red Sox in October of 2007. Pedroia set the tone with a second-pitch, leadoff homer off Jeff Francis in the bottom of the first inning to start a 13–1 Game 1 victory at Fenway Park. Schilling, a shell of his former self, barely cracking 88 miles per hour on the radar gun, was still able to win on brains, savvy, and his amazing control of the strike zone. He won Game 2 (2–1) with five and a third precise, artistic innings.

Francona knew he was sitting on a winner. But he still worried.

“It’s a fine line,” said the manager. “I can’t remember ever going into a game thinking we weren’t going to win. But you don’t sit there thinking,
We’re going to wipe them out.
You’re thinking about everything.”

The key play in Game 2 was Papelbon’s pickoff of Matt Holliday in the eighth. Assist to Mills. The Red Sox knew that the Rockies would take big leads on Papelbon, who was not known for keeping runners close. With Holliday on first and two out in the eighth, Mills signaled to Varitek to have Papelbon throw to first. Holliday was caught off the base, and the inning was over. It was the first pickoff of Papelbon’s career.

“Dana LeVangie [a Sox scout] had told us Holliday would try to get a running lead,” said Francona. “Millsie was all over it. He had made Pap aware. As soon as it happened, I was yelling, ‘Fucking way to go, Millsie.’ It was a great moment. Millsie is such a hard worker, and as a bench coach you don’t get a lot of that, so I made it a big point to talk about it with the media after the game.”

The Red Sox and Rockies resumed the Series Saturday night, October 27, at Coors Field in downtown Denver. Once again, Pedroia set the tone.

Early Saturday afternoon, getting to the ballpark seven hours before the first pitch, per usual, Pedroia was stopped by a Coors Field security official working outside the visiting players’ entrance.

“Excuse me, where are you going?” said the officer.

“I’m going into the clubhouse, man,” said Pedroia.

“You can’t be in there. You’ve got to leave.”

“I’m a player, man.”

“No, you’re not. You’ve got to go.”

At this point, Pedroia reluctantly produced his identification. Every big league player has an official MLB ID card.

“Anybody can make one of these,” said the officer. “You’ve got to go.”

That was it.

“Hey, man,” barked Pedroia. “Go ask Jeff Francis who I am! I’m the fucking guy that leads off the World Series hitting a homer!”

With that, Pedroia gained entry. Once inside, he made a beeline for Francona’s office.

“You’ll never believe what fucking happened to me!” he started.

Everybody loved the story. Then and now.

“He had a full lather going,” said Francona. “Probably a few Red Bulls sprinkled in there. But we all knew he was ready to play.”

Dice-K threw a three-hitter for seven innings in a 10–5 Red Sox win in Game 3.

“Ii kanji, bitch,” said the manager.

Hitting leadoff for the first time in the postseason, Ellsbury went 4–5 in Game 3. Francona was on fire.

The Series was effectively over. Only one team in baseball history ever came back from a 3–0 deficit to win a World Series, and that was Francona’s 2004 team. By 2007, Red Sox fans were so fat and happy, some were hoping to see the Sox lose a couple at Coors so they could win a World Series on Fenway soil.

No manager would entertain such a thought, but Francona felt a twinge of sadness when his team assembled in the visitors’ locker room before Game 4 on Sunday, October 28.

“It was weird,” he recalled. “Me and Pedey and Mikey Lowell were playing three-way cribbage, and I got to thinking. . . . We were on the cusp of winning the World Series four straight, but I found myself thinking that this might be the last time we played cribbage that year, and it made me a little sad. That shit was so much fun.”

Lester got the Game 4 start. Coming back from lymphoma, he’d made 18 starts in the minors, pitching in Greenville, Portland, and Pawtucket. He pitched only three games for manager Gabe Kapler at Greenville, but he met his future wife while pitching for the A-ball affiliate (“Everything happens for a reason,” said Lester). He returned to the majors July 23, pitching six innings in a 6–2 win, but experienced elbow trouble and went back to the minors for a start at Portland in late August. By October, he was strong. He was not on the Sox roster for the ALDS and was used only in relief in the Championship Series against the Indians.