Francona: The Red Sox Years

Well, I just finished Francona: The Red Sox Years, and it was certainly a different perspective from the one that Red Sox fans saw at the end of Terry Francona's tenure as manager. A lot of what was going on wasn't really surprising -- the tension between the manager and ownership, the GM (Theo Epstein) playing the intermediary between the two, and the eventual loss of unity in the clubhouse (see: chicken, beer). The biggest takeaway that I had from this book is how Terry Francona conducted his business in the clubhouse. He created an atmosphere that everything was going to stay inside the clubhouse, because that's what kept everyone together as a team. The whole chicken-and-beer thing didn't really bother Tito - it was the fact that it got out and spread across America, ultimately destroying the clubhouse and Tito's relationship with his players. It was a mentality, an understanding that was really similar to what Bill Belichick has done with the Patriots. For all of Belichick's successes in New England, Tito had just as many, and was just as good a leader. It wasn't Tito's fault that everything broke down - what it ultimately came to was the players, and when Bobby Valentine came in, there was nothing done to change it. If anything, Valentine's arrival to Fenway only exacerbated the current situation. Stuff like questioning Youkilis's physical and mental motivations, calling out Will Middlebrooks, and his jabs at Pedroia were simply a subset of the misery Valentine caused in 2012.

I'm glad that Francona is still revered in Red Sox Nation. He is one of the best managers in Red Sox history; he brought us two World Series rings, he was a player's manager (the book's words, not mine), and he brought a winning culture to a franchise that had been lacking one for decades. Leave it up to none other than Francona's pitching coach from 2007-2010, John Farrell, to be the guy to right the ship at Fenway. The Sox have gotten off to one of the best starts in baseball in 2013, and it can be attributed to the success of the manager and clubhouse chemistry between the players. These aren't Idiots; they're not the dominating offense of 2003 and 2004; they're not the up-and-coming pitching core of 2007. But damn it, they sure as hell seem to be back.