Francona: The Red Sox Years (56 page)
Read Francona: The Red Sox Years Online
Authors: Terry Francona,Dan Shaughnessy
Gene Michael: For being able to view the game and see the big picture.
Pete Rose: I would have run through a wall for him, and the way I swung the bat, he probably wishes I did.
Steve Swisher: For believing that a 28-year-old with two rickety knees could fight his way back to the big leagues.
Doc Edwards: For allowing his players the freedom to play the game.
Tom Trebelhorn: For teaching me how important it is to communicate, be enthusiastic, and be organized.
Gaylen Pitts: For making Triple A baseball—after ten seasons in the big leagues—feel like a wonderful experience.
I want to thank Buddy Bell for believing in me and giving me an opportunity not only to manage in the minor leagues but also to serve under him as a major league coach. Without him, I would probably still be retaking the test for my real estate license.
Thanks to Brad Mills, John Farrell, DeMarlo Hale, and many other coaches who not only are some of my best friends, but help babysit me through thick and thin.
Thanks to the Philadelphia Phillies and Lee Thomas for going out on a limb and hiring a 36-year-old first-time manager. And to Ed Wade, who fired me, but who I enjoyed working with and respect to this day. Some people in this game become almost like family, and Bill Giles is one of those special people.
I want to thank Mark Shapiro and Chris Antonetti for showing me friendship and direction when I needed it most. And Ken Macha for allowing me to serve as his bench coach and inspiring me to want to manage again.
Thanks to the Boston Red Sox for allowing me seven years and five months of the hardest but best years of my life. Special thanks to Theo Epstein for believing in me and trusting me with the responsibility of being the manager. Thanks to the hardworking men of Boston baseball ops, who will be friends for life.
If you had told me on September 1, 2011, that by November of 2011, I would be jobless and writing a book with Dan Shaughnessy, I would have told you as eloquently as only I can do that this would happen as soon as a 200-pound hog jumps out of my ass. It turned out to be not only fun but very healthy for me to look back at the eight years of whirlwind ups and downs.
Thanks to Joe Buck for being gutsy enough and crazy enough to talk me into working two playoff games in the broadcast booth, which opened a whole new door for me, and a wonderful year with ESPN.
Dan Shaughnessy
Nobody predicted this pairing of authors. I am a sports columnist for the
Boston Globe
and Terry was manager of the Boston Red Sox for eight amazing seasons. Terry was mad at me for a good portion of his Red Sox years, and a couple of times per season I’d get a call from a team publicist telling me that Terry wanted a word. This usually resulted in a mildly heated exchange. I liked the fact that the manager could engage in a spirited debate or clarification, then move forward as if nothing had happened. I loved his daily press conferences with the Boston media. I always thought the two of us could have had a strong relationship if our jobs, by definition, hadn’t placed us in a perpetual position of conflict. This turned out to be true.
In a sense, I started working on this book when my dad drove my brother and me to my first Red Sox game at Fenway Park against the Baltimore Orioles in 1961. Dad saved up enough S&H Green Stamps to get me a Tito Francona mitt in the summer of ’62.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt editor Susan Canavan and my agent, David Black, both sent me emails on September 30, 2011, the night Terry was fired by the Red Sox owners. They wanted me to see if Terry would like to work on a book about his eight seasons in the Sox dugout. I sent Terry an email the next day, and though he was hesitant, he told me he would meet with David Black.
On November 29, 2011, Terry picked me up at my Newton home in his Cadillac Escalade. He was packed for our trip to New York, where publishers wanted to talk to the ex-manager of the Red Sox about a book project. Still skeptical, ever-hilarious, Terry’s opening remark when I got in his car was, “Our first stop is going to be someplace where we can get these windows tinted so nobody’ll see me driving you around!”
Our interview process for the book was exhaustive, thorough, and fun. We met dozens of times—in hotel lobbies and coffee shops in Boston, Brookline, Bristol, Fort Myers, Detroit, Chicago, and New York. We met at the Burger King at the Charlton rest stop on the Massachusetts Turnpike. I had my Sony digital recorder, and Terry had five decades of baseball stories, including tales of two World Series winners in a town that hadn’t won a World Series since 1918.
A word about the process of this book: The narrative represents Terry’s perspective and his recollections of his eight years in the Red Sox dugout, fortified by my own thousands of hours behind the scenes with the 2004–2012 Boston Red Sox and almost four decades of baseball coverage dating back to 1977 when I was a cub reporter covering the Orioles for the
Baltimore Evening Sun.
We had a lot of help. The great Tito Francona was always available when I had a question about the Francona family or Terry’s youth. Terry’s trusted lieutenants Brad Mills, DeMarlo Hale, and John Farrell submitted to lengthy interviews, as did Sox players (and ex-players) David Ortiz, Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, Dustin Pedroia, and Kevin Youkilis. Brian O’Halloran gave me an hour at spring training. In briefer sessions, I also spoke with Derek Lowe, Johnny Damon, Darnell McDonald, Bud Black, Twig Little, Derek Jeter, and Mark Teixeira. Sox traveling secretary Jack McCormick was a tremendous source on all things Tito. Clubbies Pookie Jackson and Steve Murphy embraced the project. Veterans Tommy McLaughlin and Joe Cochran were terrific, as always. A big thank-you goes out to Sox publicist Pam Kenn (she was Pam Ganley before August 2012), a Tito favorite. Thanks to Sox employees Ken Nigro, Dr. Larry Ronan, Ben Cherington, Sam Kennedy, Jon Shestakofsky, Leah Tobin, Abby DeCiccio, Peter Cohenno, Dick Bresciani, Debbie Matson, Sarah Narracci, Sheri Rosenberg, Brita Meng Outzen, Dr. Charles Steinberg, Billy Broadbent, Sarah McKenna, John Carter, Larry Cancro, Kevin Doyle, and Guy Spina. Thanks to Jenn Katz, Bernadette Serrette, John Perolito, John Keenan, Bob Mosher, Holly Munroe, Caitlin Neves, Abby Taylor, John McDermott, and Bob Allen on the EMC level. Bill and Alli Achtmeyer and Jan Aughe get big props for their help behind the scenes. Thanks to Jim Kaat, Tim McCarver, Dan Shulman, and Orel Hershiser. Thanks to Bobby Valentine for letting me inspect the “new” manager’s office at Fenway. Thanks to Sox CEO Larry Lucchino and chairman Tom Werner for their cooperation during a difficult season. Both agreed to be interviewed for this project.
The
Boston Globe
has been great to me. Thanks to Chris Mayer, Marty Baron, Caleb Solomon, and Joe Sullivan. Big thanks to Pete Abraham, Nick Cafardo, and Mike Vega for all they do on the Sox beat. Thanks to Bill Tanton, Dave Smith, Vince Doria, Don Skwar, John Lowe, Tim Kurkjian, Laurel Prieb and Wendy Selig-Prieb, Phyllis Merhige, Bob Ryan, Chris Gasper, Amalie Benjamin, Jonny Miller, Steve Buckley, Gordon Edes, Sean McAdam, Rob Bradford, Bill Ballou, Mike Fine, Lenny Megliola, Mike Silverman, Ian Browne, Gary Tanguay, Tony Massarotti, Bill Bridgen, Joe Amorosino, Lou Merloni, Jessica Moran, Mike Barnicle, Wendi Nix, Tom Verducci, and Joel Feld. Books like this are impossible to write today without a website like baseball-reference.com. Michael Holley’s
Red Sox Rule
was a terrific source.
Owing to his enduring respect for Terry Francona, Theo Epstein submitted to a three-hour interview (at Starbucks in Brookline) with multiple follow-ups.
David Black is master of the universe and has great taste in whiskey and New York eateries. Susan Canavan steered the ship from the first day, believed in us at every stop, and paid the tab at Post 390. Friends Paul Comerford and Christy Lemire were terrific early-version editors. The ever-patient computer whiz Sean Mullin gets his own thank-you page. Thanks to Jeremiah Manion and Charlie Smiley in the
Globe
library. Stan Grossfeld brought his soul and perspective to the project. Thanks to Ashley Gilliam for taking my calls and printing a million versions of the book as we went through the summer. Copyeditor Cindy Buck had more saves than Mariano Rivera. Thanks to Gary Gentel, Linda Zecher, Eric Shuman, and Bruce Nichols at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Thanks to Jeremy Kapstein, Ed Kleven, Lesley Visser, Kevin Dupont, Stephen Stills, Steve Sheppard, Sue Lodemore, and everybody else who tolerated a cranky author.
As ever, thanks to Marilou, Sarah, Kate, Rob, and Sam for their help and support at home in Newton.
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See also
Fenway Park
Boston Red Sox/Francona as manager