They should be erecting a statue of Terry Francona in front of Fenway Park, not shoving him out the back door. Francona, after all, won two World Series with a franchise the World Series had forgotten, two, in fact, only three years apart, the first in 2004 that ended an 86-year drought.
The Red Sox deny that they fired Francona, but skeptics abound among fans and writers. Many of the same fans and writers were skeptical when the Red Sox fired Grady Little as their manager in 2003.
The skeptics were convinced that Little was fired because he stayed with Pedro Martinez too long and lost Game 7 of the American League Championship Series to the Yankees.
However, a Red Sox official said Little was gone, lose or win, because John Henry, the relatively new principal owner, didn’t like the way he managed, including his lack of preparation for games.
Henry responded to an e-mail about the team’s latest managerial development by saying, “I’m not really commenting on this stuff.” His president, Larry Lucchino, and his general manager, Theo Epstein, did not return telephone calls seeking comment.
Because I have no first-hand knowledge of whether Francona resigned or was fired, I wanted to ask any of those executives if in their two meetings with Francona Friday they offered to pick up the option in his contract for next season.
If they did offer to exercise the option and he said no, thank you, he would have effectively resigned. If they didn’t make the offer, it’s fair to say they fired him. Why fire the manager who produced a pair of World Series titles?
It should be remembered that the last manager to win multiple World Series also left the team he managed to those titles.
In Joe Torre’s case, the Yankees won four World Series and finished in first place 10 times under him, but in his last three post-season appearances the Yankees failed to advance beyond the first round, and the team’s braintrust was unhappy.
Divided in their thinking about retaining Torre as the manager, they made him a one-year offer he could easily refuse and did.
In an earlier Yankees’ experience with a manager, George Steinbrenner held a mid-winter news conference in his office at Yankee Stadium and announced that the manager, Dick Howser, had decided to resign.
Howser, the owner explained, had received an offer to join a real estate venture in his home state of Florida that he couldn’t refuse. Howser, sitting in the office among the reporters, looked perplexed. As it turned out, there was no real estate venture.
Even though the Yankees had won 103 games under the rookie manager, they lost their post-season series to Kansas City, and that was unacceptable to Steinbrenner. He didn’t want to announce he was firing a 103-win manager so he concocted the real estate story.
The Red Sox created no such fiction, but they weren’t necessarily forthcoming.
A baseball official intimately familiar with the thinking of club officials said, “The things that are being said aren’t accurate. It doesn’t help anybody to talk about it.”
“People want to believe there are dark things,” the official added.
He referred to reports that the Red Sox really fired Francona even though Francona himself said it was his decision to leave.
At a news conference Friday evening, Francona said, it was his decision to leave but added that the owners never told him they wanted him to stay. In other words, they didn’t offer to exercise the contract option.
In his comments, Francona said he left because he felt the players needed to hear a different voice. Perhaps his view can be linked to the substance of reports that Francona had “lost” the clubhouse, meaning at least some players no longer paid attention to what he said.
Why such a circumstance should develop or exist on a team as good as the Red Sox is difficult to understand, but it has happened with other teams.
Players are children. Because of their ability to hit or throw a ball, they are pampered their entire lives. Most mature and learn to rise above their coddled treatment. Not all do, and that’s where trouble can start.
Winning teams usually avoid those problems, but those problems can undermine winning teams. Did clubhouse anarchy cause the Red Sox to lose 20 of their last 27 games and the nine-game wild-card lead the Red Sox had over the Tampa Bay Rays Sept. 2?
If such fatal problems existed, where were the players who put winning above their selfish, childish behavior? Maybe Henry and Lucchino and Epstein forgot that ingredient when they were constructing their gaudy $161 million team last winter. Chocolate chip cookies won’t taste as good if you leave out the chocolate chips.
Will the Red Sox eliminate the bad chips when they plan their 2012 team? Will they expect their new manager to bring his own chocolate chips with him?
Another thought: If, with his departure, voluntary or involuntary, Francona is being held or holding himself accountable for the team’s failure to reach the post-season the past two seasons despite $324 million in payrolls, should Epstein be held accountable as well?
The Francona development came so quickly that it cut short our time to appreciate the team’s stunning collapse, which matched the crash-and-burn experience of the Atlanta Braves in the National League wild-card race.
According to Elias Sports Bureau, the Braves’ biggest lead over the St. Louis Cardinals was 10 ½ games on several days, the latest being Aug. 25. The Red Sox’s largest lead over the Rays was 11 ½ games July 27. The Red Sox were in first place then. They are no place now except in a serious state of disbelief.
PLAY OF THE YEAR
No need to scour the videotape to find the most significant defensive play of the year. I’m not talking about the most acrobatic, wall-leaping, ground-diving play of the year. I’m talking significance. If you saw it, you’ll know it.
On the next-to-last night of the regular season, the Yankees were playing the Rays, who were tied with the Red Sox for the American League wild-card lead. The game in St. Petersburg was in the sixth inning, and the Yankees had just taken a 3-2 lead on Nick Swisher’s run-scoring double.
Jeremy Hellickson, the Rays’ rookie pitcher, intentionally walked Jorge Posada, loading the bases with no one out. The Rays would consider themselves lucky if Hellickson got a double play and they escaped the inning with the Yankees scoring only one more run.
Russell Martin was the next batter, and he did not hit into a double play. He grounded into a triple play. He hit the grounder directly to third base, where Evan Longoria fielded the ball, stepped on third, then threw to second, where Ben Zobrist caught it and quickly fired to first for Sean Rodriguez to complete the triple play.
In the next inning, Matt Joyce slugged a three-run home run, the Rays won, 5-3, then won the wild card the next night by overcoming a 7-0 deficit and edging the Yankees, 8-7, with a run in the 12th inning.
OZZIE BEING OZZIE
Ozzie Guillen is so accustomed to stirring up trouble that he outdid himself last week. After the Chicago White Sox, at his request, released Guillen from his managerial contract before the end of the season, he announced on his Web site that he was thrilled about being the new manager of the Florida Marlins.
The only problem was the old manager, Jack McKeon, was still managing the Marlins. McKeon had announced his retirement, effective at the end of the season, but the season hadn’t ended.
Guillen’s premature post was removed later the same day it was posted.
Not that anyone cares about tampering any more, but there’s very likely a tampering case to be investigated by the commissioner’s office.
Guillen’s move to the Marlins was widely reported while he was still employed by the White Sox, and his own announcement made it obvious that he or a representative had been improperly in communication with the Marlins.
MAYORS BEING MAYORS
They are politicians so I guess that explains the thinking, or lack of it, that went into the playoff wager made by the mayors of Philadelphia (Michael Nutter) and St. Louis (Francis Slay).
Whosever team wins the division series between the Phillies and the Cardinals wins locally brewed beer from the other city. How original. How stupid.
Couldn’t the mayors of two major league cities come up with something that would better serve young fans in their cities?
Instead of advertising beer, the mayors could do something with geography (cleaning up debris on the banks of the Mississippi River) or history (polishing the Liberty Bell). They might not be great ideas, but they beat beer.