Francona: The Red Sox Years (11 page)

Then he started calling Red Sox players, all the members of the 2004 Red Sox. He didn’t reach every player, but he left them all messages.

Hey, Manny, it’s Tito. Just wanted to say hello. I’m looking forward to it. I can’t wait. If you don’t want to call back, I get it, but I just wanted to let you know how excited I am.

He never heard back on that one.

“I knew Manny wasn’t going to call me back,” he said. “I’m not an idiot. But I wanted to make that call. When I was a player, I always wished the manager did something to make me feel important.”

After making his calls, Francona went to dinner at Davio’s with Epstein and Lucchino. They called Mike Barnicle, and Lucchino told the columnist, “In spite of your efforts to help Terry get this job, you can’t be his third-base coach.”

Riding the train home to Philadelphia the next day, Francona thought back to a moment he’d shared with his best friend Brad Mills in their final year in Philadelphia when the Phils were playing out the string, en route to 97 losses and unemployment.

“Millsie and I were driving down Central Avenue in Arizona, and the Diamondbacks were fighting it out for the pennant, and we were something like 30 games out. We were just getting our ass handed to us. As we were pulling up to this beautiful new ballpark, we were so jealous. I said, ‘Millsie, these guys have a chance to win every day. Someday that could be us.’”

Back in Boston, Epstein composed a memo to Henry, Werner, and Lucchino, explaining the managerial search and its conclusion: “We were looking for a manager who would embrace the exhaustive preparation that the organization demands. . . . By using video and computer simulations, we attempted to discover how each candidate would react to game-speed strategic decisions. . . . Given the demands of the media and our players, we sought a manager who would be able to communicate with all constituencies in a positive and intelligent manner. We were looking for a ‘partner’ not a ‘middle-manager.’ . . . Terry Francona quickly emerged from the applicant pool. His experiences (Philadelphia manager, Cleveland front office, Texas/Oakland bench coach) gave him a remarkable understanding of our vision. His preparation, energy, integrity, and communication skills are exceptional.”

The only question Theo still had was the one he expressed at the press conference.

“Is the guy too nice? Does he treat people too well?”

CHAPTER 5

T
HE NEW MANAGER
of the Red Sox had a lot on his mind when he drove south for spring training in February 2004. He was excited to be managing again, and the big-payroll, bigger- expectations Red Sox had acquired Curt Schilling and Keith Foulke over the winter.

But he knew there were going to be some superstars bent out of shape when the Sox gathered in Fort Myers.

There were no secrets. In December 2003, Theo had worked out a deal with the White Sox that would have sent Nomar Garciaparra and Scott Williamson to Chicago for outfielder Magglio Ordonez and a pair of pitching prospects. At the same time, Manny Ramirez had been placed on waivers, then traded to Texas for Alex Rodriguez. The Garciaparra and Ramirez deals were quickly killed when Commissioner Selig and the Major League Baseball Players Association blocked the A-Rod–Manny trade because of creative contract restructuring that would have lowered the annual value of Rodriguez’s contract from $27 million to $20.75 million. Henry and Lucchino were furious with the commissioner and with the players association, but they were not the ones who were going to have to deal with the superstars in the clubhouse. That would be Francona’s job.

It was impossible to anticipate Manny’s reaction. He was not a creature of cause-and-effect. Garciaparra was a different case. Francona knew Nomar. He’d managed Garciaparra in the Arizona Fall League before Nomar hit the big time. Everyone knew Garciaparra was hurt and embarrassed that the Sox hadn’t made more effort to sign him to a contract extension. He was furious that Henry had met with Rodriguez, made deals with the Rangers and White Sox, then asked him to come back and play for the Red Sox as if nothing had happened. It didn’t help that teammate Kevin Millar had spoken publicly about the Sox making an “upgrade” with Rodriguez. Over the winter, when reporters asked Nomar how the trade reports made him feel, he turned the question around and asked the scribes how they would feel if they woke up one day and read in the paper that their replacements were being interviewed.

“I called Nomar during the winter when all this came up,” said Francona. “He was on vacation in Hawaii. I told him, ‘I know you got some shit going on, but it’s not me and you.’ He said he understood that. He was great about it. But it turned out to be like a lot of other things. I thought I knew what was going on, but I don’t think I quite realized ‘Boston’ yet—how nothing was a little story in Boston.”

Francona had another enlarged, wounded ego in Pedro Martinez. Pedro’s Hall of Fame skills were in slight decline by 2004, and he was also going into the final year of his contract. Martinez was ever-mindful of the current status of his contract. In the spring of ’04, he was additionally uncomfortable with the widespread notion that Schilling was going to be the man to save the Red Sox and break the team’s 86-year championship drought. Pedro was aware that Schilling had called him a “punk” after Martinez shucked ancient Yankee coach Don Zimmer to the ground during a Yankees–Red Sox dustup in the ’03 playoffs. Pedro never forgot a slight.

“I think I had him pretty much figured out,” said Francona. “I knew he was on his own program. I did my homework on everybody.”

“Homework” is no exaggeration. With help from baseball operations assistant Brian O’Halloran, Francona had mailed a letter to every manager, coach, scout, and player development person in the Red Sox system, requesting information and opinions on all players in the organization.

“That was really helpful,” said the manager. “I had info on all the players and the people evaluating them.”

The Red Sox equipment truck pulled out of Van Ness Street, adjacent to Fenway, on Monday, February 16, two days after the bombshell trade that sent Alex Rodriguez to the Yankees for Alfonso Soriano. The A-Rod trade perfectly bookended Boston baseball’s nuclear winter, which had started with the Grady Little Game, and also played to the fears of Red Sox fans convinced that the Yankees would always get the better of the Sox. In the aftermath of the trades and broken deals, Henry and Steinbrenner traded barbs—Henry claiming, “Baseball doesn’t have an answer for the Yankees,” while George responded with, “He chose not to go the extra distance for his fans.” Selig ordered both franchises to cease and desist.

Driving south from Yardley, Pennsylvania, Francona heard the noise, but couldn’t focus too much on Manny, Nomar, Pedro, A-Rod, George, or the low-talking owner of the Red Sox. He had to get ready for baseball.

“The drive south is one of my favorite things every year,” he said. “It signifies getting warm and a new chance to start over. You start out wearing a jacket and you shed that, and you eat a bunch of tacos and you see all those signs for South of the Border, and then you take off your sweatshirt, and by the time you get to Florida you’re in a T-shirt and it’s sunny. I always go down at least a week early.”

He exited Route 75 South at Daniels Boulevard, drove another five minutes, then wheeled his blue Mercedes SUV into the Homewood Suites adjacent to the Bell Tower shops and restaurants in cluttered Fort Myers. Homewood was nowhere near Fort Myers Beach, and it also wasn’t especially close to City of Palms Park or the Red Sox sprawling minor league complex at the dead end of godforsaken Edison Road. Most big league ballplayers and managers rent condos near golf courses or beaches during spring training. That was too swanky and isolated for Francona. He liked the convenience and the company at Homewood. The Hilton property was always filled with polite, elderly snowbird Sox fans and pasty college teams making their spring baseball/softball trips. Homewood served breakfast in the common area every day, and there was a wine-and-cheese hour on weekday afternoons. Red Sox relic Johnny Pesky always seemed to be holding court with elderly Sox fans, talking about a train ride when Jimmie Foxx boosted him into the upper bunk. Luis Tiant was another Sox legend housed at Homewood, and spring residents grew familiar with the cigar smoke wafting from Tiant’s SUV, which was always parked in front of the hotel.

Nobody bothered Francona when he smoked a cigar on the patio outside his first-floor, poolside room.

“That place was perfect for me,” he said. “They make your bed, and they have the best coffee in the league in the lobby, and I’m never there. I never liked coming home to a condo by myself. The Sox got me a place at one of those golf courses one year, but I gave it to the clubhouse guys and went back to Homewood. It was just comfortable. My dad loved coming down and staying there. I’d try to take him to dinner, but he loved those Swedish meatballs they put out at five in the afternoon.”

Armed with a cup of hotel coffee and a banana from the not-yet-set-up breakfast spread, the new manager of the Red Sox was up and out of Homewood every morning by 5:30
AM
.

“I was anxious, nervous, all of those things,” said Francona. “I was really ready to get started. I couldn’t wait.”

He set up shop in the manager’s office at the Sox minor league clubhouse and greeted pitchers, catchers, and anxious veterans who arrived before the required reporting day. He got to know Jonny Miller, the longtime radio reporter from WBZ in Boston. Miller was a press box–clubhouse legend around the Red Sox. He was born with cerebral palsy, grew up in well-to-do Newton, graduated from Boston University, and built a successful career gathering sound from professional sports locker rooms. Miller covered all of Boston’s professional sports teams at one time or another and was a favorite of Larry Bird and Pedro Martinez. By the time Terry Francona arrived in Fort Myers in 2004, Miller was exclusively a baseball reporter, one who worked longer hours than anyone else on the beat. In his midfifties, Miller suffered from back issues that made it difficult for him to stand for long periods. Polite players sometimes offered him their seat, but Miller usually refused. He was a workaholic and asked brutally tough questions (“Grady, can it get any worse than this?”). He got to the ballpark long before any other reporter, sometimes even before the early-bird manager.

Francona: “The day of our first pitchers and catchers’ workout, I got there at about 5:45 in the morning, and it was pitch-black, and the front door to the complex was locked. Millsie had the key, and I’d beaten him there, so I walked around to the side and fucking Jonny Miller scared the shit out of me. He came around the corner, and he was carrying a bunch of books in his hands, and we bumped into each other, and I was like, ‘What the fuck?’ His answer was, ‘I had to get some coffee.’ I said, ‘That’s not what I meant. What the hell are you doing here?’

“I learned pretty quickly that Jonny always got to ask the first question,” said Francona. “He asked things that other people wouldn’t ask. I got to know him pretty quick. I think the writers sometimes get a kick out of him, and sometimes get irritated, but they know that he can ask stuff that maybe they want the answer, but they don’t feel like getting yelled at. There was something with Jonny almost daily. I do think he was a big Red Sox fan. You could tell if somebody asked a question he didn’t like. He’d be shaking his head, getting mad, thinking,
That dumb-ass.
He’d always be first in the room after games, and you had to let him get all of his stuff in order. He’d shuffle in and lean his cane against my desk, and his tape recorder would usually make a buzzing sound at the beginning. Most of my press conferences started with me saying, ‘You all set, Jonny?’”

Francona loved the early days of spring. He’d make the rounds in the clubhouse every morning, finding a new player who’d arrived or introducing himself to a minor leaguer who was in his first big league camp. He told the pitchers and catchers to do their work and not worry about any formal meetings until the full squad arrived. At the end of each workout, the manager sat on a picnic table and met with reporters outside the Sox clubhouse. In the spring of 2004, Francona noticed a lot of reporters from New York. The Sox were a hot topic in Gotham, and at least five representatives from New York outlets stalked the Sox daily.
New York Newsday
included a daily Boston item on its spring training pages, entitled “The Misery Index.”

Nomar and Pedro made it to camp a day before they were required to report. Nomar made little attempt to hide his contempt for the organization—even when he smiled.

“That smile is more of a sneer,” observed Red Sox chairman Tom Werner. “. . . I’m sure he didn’t like to read in the papers over the off-season that he was part of the Rodriguez trade, but this is a business that these people are playing.”

Meanwhile, Pedro seemed to be in a good mood. Veteran Sox watchers considered it a blessing that the talented righty arrived before March 1. Through his Boston years, Martinez had made it a habit to arrive late, or just barely before he was contractually obligated to join the team. Hard-core Sox fans knew that Pedro’s father’s birthday was in February, and more than once the Cy Young winner was late getting to Fort Myers because he had to stick around the Dominican Republic for his dad’s birthday celebration.

It was big news back in Boston on February 26 when Manny wheeled into camp, wearing a New York Giants number 80 Jeremy Shockey jersey. Manny entered the complex through the front door with his agent, Gene Mato, and the two were quickly whisked into a meeting with Henry, Lucchino, and Werner. Ramirez submitted to the routine club physical and took swings in the indoor batting cages adjacent to the media trailers, but did not speak to the media.

He didn’t have much to say to his new manager either.

“I went up to him and introduced myself, and it wasn’t good,” said Francona. “He wouldn’t talk to me, and he wouldn’t shake my hand. I tried to talk to him, and he said, ‘You just want me to like you.’ I said, ‘No shit. You’re right.’ It’s not what I expected.