DHL Dan CCXXV - Welcome Back, Terry

Since Shank chose to criticize professional athletes' salaries, turnabout is fair play. The man who co-wrote a book with the main subject of this column and thus has a commercial interest in promoting the return of said subject so he can sell some more books, does just that with his latest column:

Catching up with Terry Francona on his return to baseball, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while saying a prayer for Drake Maye . . .

▪ Old friend Terry Francona is back in baseball, accepting an offer to manage the Cincinnati Reds for the next three seasons. He’ll be back in the third base dugout at Fenway Park next June 30 for a three-game series against the Red Sox.

We all thought he was done for good last October when he stepped down after 11 seasons managing the Indians/Guardians.

“I don’t have the energy to do the job the way I want to do it,” he said then. “Rather than hang around for the wrong reasons, I’d rather just go out on my own terms . . . It’s not like I came to this decision overnight.”

What changed?

Royalty checks, of course!

Another Terry Francona Column

The former Red Sox skipper shares his thoughts on the 2004 World Series champions and other things:

On eve of a return to Fenway, Terry Francona reflects on ’04 Red Sox, the state of baseball, and retirement

Former manager Terry Francona will join players from his 2004 ball club when the Red Sox honor their curse-bustin’ champs while celebrating the lives of Tim and Stacy Wakefield at the Fenway home opener Tuesday afternoon.

“It’s unbelievable that it’s been 20 years,” Francona said. “The best thing about it are the memories. I’ll be so happy to see so many people, particularly [former coach] Brad Mills. But the Wake thing is what I think is really special. When Pam [Sox vice president Pam Kenn] asked me to come back for this, it took me about two seconds to say yes.”

His favorite memory of the 200-win knuckleballer?

“There’s a lot when you’re around somebody that much,” said Francona. “One thing that shows you what kind of a guy he was is Game 3 of the 2004 ALCS against the Yankees [a 19-8 loss that put the Sox down, 3-0], when we were just getting beat up. And here he comes up the tunnel with his spikes and his glove, and he said, ‘I can go suck up some innings.’

DHL Dan CLXXXIV - An Ode To Terry Francona

Take it away, Shank:

Terry Francona gets to leave baseball on his own terms, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while waiting for Patriots-Cowboys . . .

▪ Terry “Tito” Francona managed the Red Sox for eight seasons, averaged 93 wins, made it to the playoffs five times, and won two World Series. A future Hall of Famer, he is the greatest manager in Boston baseball history, and Sunday is the last day of his 36th and final major league campaign.

Raised in big league clubhouses — son of the original Tito, who played 15 seasons (.363 in 1959) — Francona is retiring after 11 years in the Cleveland dugout. The 64-year-old skipper has endured more than 40 surgeries throughout his career, and faces more this winter.

“I’ve taken pride in doing what I think is right, and I think this is right,” Francona said. “I don’t have the energy to do the job the way I want to do it. Rather than hang around for the wrong reasons, I’d rather just go out on my own terms. Not many people get to do that.”

Solid column by Shank.

DHL Dan CXXVIII - The Management Column

Shank did a column a few days ago that I had no desire to read all weekend, so here you go:

This Red Sox-Guardians series has a great managerial angle to it, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while kicking off summer with a bucket of whole-belly fried clams …

▪ Red Sox vs. Guardians in Cleveland this weekend means a chance to see perhaps the two best managers in baseball — probably the two best managers in Red Sox history — going head-to-head for three days.

Hyperbole? Maybe. But name a current manager who consistently does a better job than Terry Francona and Alex Cora. And does anyone think Dick Williams, Joe Cronin, or Bill Carrigan could deal with today’s analytics geeks, stubborn/entitled (anti-vax) ballplayers, and nonstop media obligations that are part of the daily, skull-imploding Boston baseball experience?

Not So Hot Stove League

Since Major League Baseball's currently under a lockout, Shank (co-author of his book) talks to former Boston Red Sox manager Terry Francona about other baseball stuff:

Catching up with Terry Francona, who plans to be back in the Cleveland dugout

It is the end of 2021, the middle of baseball winter, and all of our Hot Stoves are Ice Cold.

So here’s a little baseball for you. Here’s what’s going on with Terry Francona — the best manager in Red Sox history — who was fired by the Sox exactly 10 years ago.

Francona averaged 93 wins in his eight seasons at Fenway, winning two World Series, taking the Sox to the playoffs five times, and playing in front of a full house every night. After the 2011 chicken-and-beer collapse, Francona gave way to Bobby Valentine, who gave way to John Farrell, who gave way to Alex Cora.

Cora was one of Francona’s Red Sox players. So were future managers Dave Roberts (Dodgers), Kevin Cash (Rays), Gabe Kapler (Giants), Rocco Baldelli (Twins), David Ross (Cubs), and Mark Kotsay (A’s). You can say that Francona’s managing tree has borne more fruit than Bill Belichick’s coaching tree. Cora, Cash, Roberts, and Kapler all managed in the playoffs in 2021.

Old School Baseball, By Terry Francona

Shank hasn't rang up his book buddy in a while; let's see how the Cleveland Indians manager is taking the shortened 2020 baseball season:

For old-school Terry Francona, this won’t be routine, but it’s still baseball, and it still counts

Baseball is scheduled to be back July 23 or 24. Teams have to submit 60-player rosters by Sunday afternoon. Players are to report to their home parks for “spring training” by July 1, which is this coming Wednesday. There will be a 60-game season. With no fans in the stands.

Everything is different now, and veteran Indians manager Terry Francona knows what that means.

“If you don’t run a ball out, there’s not going to be a crowd there to let you know that that’s not good enough,” Francona said in a telephone interview. “There’s no checks and balances. We have to live by what we believe in more than ever now.

“We have to furnish our own enthusiasm. Me and the coaches have talked about that a bunch. The players will take their cues from us. The one thing I’ve told players — once we start playing, what happens goes on the back of your baseball card. So it may look and sound different, but it counts.

The best part of this column is Shank's lack of input, as he lets Tito do most of the talking.

Wide Right

What better way to write about the upcoming Super Bowl than to devote an entire column to Terry Francona?

Terry Francona knows Philadelphia sports fans. He managed the Phillies for four seasons and remembers when local enthusiasts slashed his car tires on Fan Appreciation Day at Veterans Stadium. He remembers a tender moment a few years later, after he was fired, when he hanging out before an Eagles game, helping a photographer pal who was taking photos of the Eagles and 49ers.

Bonus - Larry Bird sighting!

Curses! Another Blown Lede

No one loves a good curse more than The CHB. So it stands to reason that today's excrement exercise is one big kiss off to 108 years of Cubs failure

In true Shank fashion, he tries to make poetry out of prose -- "They blew a lead of 6-3 with two out and nobody aboard in the eighth inning. Manager Joe Maddon was being measured for a Grady Little cap. [T]he Cubs ... won it when lefty Mike Montgomery retired Michael Martinez on a grounder to Kris Bryant with the tying run aboard at 12:47 a.m. You could hear Harry Caray hollering'Cubs win' and 'Holy cow' in hardball heaven." -- and in the process completely misses the actual drama of the game. No surprise there.

Even less surprising to those of us who have tortured ourselves to bring you this column for going on 10 years, is his attempt to stick it to the Red Sox in the process. Indeed, this was one of the classic World Series, and Shank spends most of it writing about the Red Sox.

Let's start with Theo Epstein, who has now "has punched his ticket to Cooperstown as the man who killed two curses."

Since The CHB doesn't seem to remember what he previously wrote about Theo, I'll remind him: 

• "Epstein is a student of the game, but it's a mistake to say he knows more about baseball than [Larry] Lucchino or anyone else." 
• "It was charged [in 2005] that Sox management conducted a ''smear campaign" against Epstein. How? Where's the campaign?"   
• "Epstein made a ton of bad moves in the later years of his tenure, then went to Chicago for a $19 million contract and watched from afar as the Sox decomposed. ... Mistakes were made. Money was spent badly. The Sox lost their way and tried to throw money at their problems." 

There's Jon Lester, "who was famously lowballed, then traded, by the smarter-than-everybody Sox in 2014, did what he proved he could do in Boston: he came up big in the big moment. Lester was called upon to pitch in relief and stuffed the Indians for three innings." Well, not exactly. Lester allowed two runs in three innings work, and it was his wild pitch that cut the Cubs lead to 2 in the bottom of the fifth, giving Cleveland hope they could come back.

There's John Lackey, who gave up 3 runs in 5 innings in a Cubs loss Game 5.

There's Terry Francona who "[had] a commanding World Series lead, only to see it implode over the final three games."

Imagine what Shank would have said if this had happened while Francona was managing the Red Sox. Oh wait, it did:

The greatest choke in baseball history ended the only way it could have ended, with the Red Sox gagging on the Camden Yards lawn one last time. ... Say goodbye to Terry Francona. In the midnight confessions, Francona spoke of “the mess we got ourselves in,’’ then said, “We needed to take care of business and we didn’t.’’ 

In historic fashion.

Wouldn't losing a 3 games to 1 lead in the World Series, dropping the final two on your home field, be even worse?

Yes it would. I can think of only one thing worse: Shank's column.

The Big Lie Continues

The spirit of Joseph Goebbels continues, as the jackasses at ESPN continue to spread the lie that Shank is somehow in the Baseball Hall of Fame:

Greatest question from HOFer @Dan_Shaughnessy to future HOFer Terry Francona: ”Would you call this a must-win game?" #WorldSeries pic.twitter.com/mh5eBTKOgC

— Marly Rivera (@MarlyRiveraESPN) November 2, 2016

By this 'standard', I won one Tour de France, maybe two...

Rewriting History, Part II

My co-blogger notes in the post below the many times Shank has trashed a Red Sox player, manager or general manager as they were ending their tenure in Boston, only to have their careers resuscitated in Chicago or Cleveland. Shank's world class hypocrisy tour continues today as we await Game 1 of the 2016 World Series.

CLEVELAND — Theo and Tito.

Theirs are names from “Sesame Street,’’ or perhaps a couple of characters for a children’s book series: “Theo and Tito Go to the Zoo.’’ “Theo and Tito Say, ‘Goodnight, Moon.’ ’’

When I read a Shank column, I often think I'm reading a children's book.

But they are neither muppets nor fiction. Theo Epstein and Terry “Tito” Francona are the men who in 2004 brought Boston its first baseball championship in 86 years. Then they did it again in 2007.

Theo and Tito were together on Yawkey Way for eight years, winning an average of 93 games per season, making the playoffs five times, and filling Fenway for every game of every season. When they left after the chicken-and-beer collapse of 2011 — Theo voluntarily, Tito being pushed — it was like the breakup of Boston’s baseball Beatles.

Shank should have written them a thank you letter for the chicken & beer fiasco - he got about ten columns out of it.

Theo and Tito were together on Yawkey Way for eight years, winning an average of 93 games per season, making the playoffs five times, and filling Fenway for every game of every season. When they left after the chicken-and-beer collapse of 2011 — Theo voluntarily, Tito being pushed — it was like the breakup of Boston’s baseball Beatles.

Now they are on opposite sides of two “other” long-suffering franchises in the 112th World Series, which starts Tuesday night at Progressive Field. The Chicago Cubs, led by general manager Theo Epstein, have not won a World Series since 1908 and have not even participated in the Fall Classic since 1945. The Cleveland Indians, managed by Terry Francona, have not won a World Series since 1948. We have two plagued ball clubs led by a pair of curse-busting bosses.

Something has to give.

Dan Shaughnessy - Master of the Obvious.

In Defense of Small Ball

It's baseball Armageddon!

Let us count the ways:

1. Barry Bonds threw out the first pitch at an NLCS game.
2. At least one small market team will be in the World Series.
3. Neither the Red Sox nor Yankees will be in the World Series.
4. The World Series won't be watched by people who like home runs or big market teams.
5. Pitching and defense are in vogue.
6. Major league baseball players can actually, you know, catch the ball!

Today's utterly meandering column, which begins in San Francisco with Barry Bonds and ends with somewhere outside Cleveland with Indians manager Terry Francona pondering the Kansas City Royals, begs the question as to whether The CHB realizes that several years ago, Mr. Moneyball Billy Beane started investing in defense, seeing that as the undervalued asset, and that since 2012 no team has converted a ball in play into an out more often than Oakland, and the 2013 World Series Champion Red Sox were built on -- you guessed it -- pitching and defense.

No, he doesn't realize it, because he spends half the piece quoting Terry Francona on how great Kansas City's defense is, while never pointing out that KC finished just 12th overall in defense efficiency.

Guess Shank won't be watching, either.

Booked (Not So) Solid

Good judgment, or a Shanktastic oversight?

Either way, The Boston Globe dissed The CHB's memoir with Terry Francona, as it failed to make the Globe's top sports books of the year.

Perhaps the 2013 Series win undercut just a little of Francona/Shaughnessy's argument that management cared more about marketing than on-field results.

As Long As It Helps The Book Sales

Former Red Sox manager Terry Francona, co-author of this book with Our Man Shank, wins the 2013 American League Manager of the Year.

After the epic worst-to-first season, after the knee-jerk pronouncement that the magical 2013 Red Sox championship run was greater than the 2004 title that relieved 86 years of frustration, Terry Francona somehow gets the final word on the 2013 baseball season.

Francona Tuesday was named American League Manager of the Year for 2013.

It was a shocker in Boston. And it was not a party-starter for the bosses who fired Francona after the 2011 train-wreck finish.

First, know this. Voting for 2013 AL Manager of the Year was conducted before the postseason. The Sox’ 11-5 playoff run and ride down Boylston Street was not a factor in this election. This vote was based strictly on the 2013 regular season.

Shank also gives his readers a first time print disclosure on his conflicts of interest, inadvertently making some of the article about himself:

In the interest of disclosure, this is where I need to remind you that I work for a paper owned by the Red Sox owner, John Henry. And I wrote a book with Terry Francona. It would be impossible to have more conflicts of interest. But the book is long gone, and the Red Sox have emerged from the post-Francona rubble in spectacular fashion. Farrell and the Red Sox won the 2013 World Series. Compared with that, this is nothing.

All that said, the award to Francona is loaded with irony and symbolism. Think of it this way: the Red Sox won three World Series in this century and the only time Francona was named Manager of the Year was the year in which he was not managing the Red Sox. What’s up with that?

Given that the award goes out, in my observation, to the manager that does the most with the least, this year's outcome is unsurprising, and just.

Are You Not Entertained?

Maybe you will be, maybe you won't. Clear your calendars early next year and head down to Norwell, MA:

Norwell's Company Theater 2014 special events include Dan Shaughnessy, Jimmy Tingle

The Company Theater of Norwell special performances for the 2014 season include an eclectic lineup of music, comedy, drama and the 1980s. (J)an. 3 – Author and sports writer Dan Shaughnessy (“Francona”) talks Sox.

Not mentioned in the article is whether Shank's appearance is classified as comedy or the 1980's, or both...

Craptacular

Today's column, an excerpt from his new book on ex Red Sox manager Terry Francona, is like so many of The CHB's, full of shit.

Literally.

It's several hundred words on how Francona liked to use the bathroom in his clubhouse office, sometimes going so far as to invite people in while he was on the crapper.

Extraordinary journalism.

History, Revised?

The Terry Francona book continues to take a few interesting turns:

Terry Francona and Dan Shaughnessy joined Gresh & Zo Wednesday morning to discuss their new book, “Francona: The Red Sox Years.” The guys asked the former Red Sox manager about past relationships with players and how ownership affected his tenure in Boston. Also, Francona and Shaughnessy give a look into how they built their unlikely relationship.

Francona, on Tom Werner saying the manager admitted to losing the clubhouse
I don’t think the front office ever said that. I think Tom Werner made that comment that I said that I had lost control, which I had never said. I don’t think I ever lost control.

If you're inclined to equate letting certain players booze in the clubhouse with losing control of the team, that doesn't quite square with this, does it?

Based on Francona’s non-denial, it’s apparently true that some of the Sox’ starting pitchers were drinking in the clubhouse during games they were not scheduled to start. A report in yesterday’s Herald broke the story and Francona rejected an opportunity to say that it was untrue.

Next:

Francona, on the challenges of Boston
Part of being a manager in Boston, or probably a coach in Boston for that matter, is trying to put out the daily fires. There are enough of them to begin with, and the ones that aren’t there are made up. It’s part of the daily regimen. Trying to make it easier for the players to play was part of my responsibility.

So Francona, who cites putting out the daily fires as part of his job, asked one of the arsonists to help him write this book?

Francona, on Manny Ramirez taking a public beating for taking three strikes against Mariano Rivera
I tried to always stick up for Manny, I think that’s probably the reason people didn’t believe me. We had asked him to pinch hit that day and he was ready. He was back in the tunnel, he was engaged. He never got a pitch he thought he could handle, and he never offered.

Now, I don’t think he lost sleep over it. But he didn’t go up there and mail it in. He took a beating for that one, and I didn’t think that was just.

Maybe my brain's shot, but I distinctly remember one of those first two strikes with Manny's bat resting firmly on his shoulder, but not the last one.

The rest of the Gresh & Zo interview is at the first link. The best parts of the two segments are Shank's infrequent interjections.

New Book Nothing New

Sports Illustrated is now running an excerpt from Shaughnessy's latest hatchet job book, and as expected, it's heavy on the panting and light on everything else.

Among the breathless revelations:

• Tom Werner cares about television.
• John Henry is really rich, and doesn't always have time to spend making hands-on decisions on  every single one of his international businesses
• The Fenway Sports Group also owns a soccer team
• Fans don't want to watch losing baseball teams or selfish players

And in the course of the fairly short excerpt, there was, as expected, at least one major factual error: "Our owners in Boston, they've been owners for 10 years. They come in with all these ideas about baseball, but I don't think they love baseball."

• John Henry: has been a franchise owner since 1989, first in AAA then since 1991 in the majors (Yankees, Marlins, Red Sox).  
• Tom Werner: franchise owner since 1990 (Padres, Red Sox)
• Larry Lucchino - President/CEO of Orioles (1988-93), President/CEO of Padres (1995-01)

So which person has been an owner for 10 years? Henry and Werner have been owners for more than 20 years each. And who buys a minor league baseball team, or spends his entire career in baseball, if he doesn't love the sport?

The prose is, well, to call it "basic" would be an insult to fifth-graders everywhere.  Fat, drunk and curly is no way to go through life, Shank.

For his part, Francona is now backing away from the harsher parts of it. What a shock.

The Terry Francona Project - II

Terry Francona's book is out on Tuesday. Shank's pre-release column on the book is out today.

IT SEEMED LIKE Terry Francona was always mad at me.

For eight years.

My cellphone would ring and it would be a Red Sox publicist calling: “Terry wants to talk to you.” And we would talk. The manager would dispute and clarify things I’d written in one of my Globe columns. He’d explain why he left Pedro Martinez in the game after Pedro exceeded his pitch limit. He would defend using Coco Crisp over Jacoby Ellsbury at the start of the 2007 playoffs. He’d challenge the notion that he was panicking by having Jon Lester ready to pitch on three days’ rest in the 2009 postseason.

“What I wrote is just an opinion,” I’d offer.

“Well, not having information hasn’t prevented you from having an opinion” was a familiar retort from Francona.

Fortunately, he didn’t carry a grudge. I enjoyed the give-and-takes with the Sox skipper during his successful eight years (five playoffs, two championships) in the corner office on Yawkey Way. He was a baseball lifer, almost as old as I. He told great stories and he was funny. I believed that if we’d had different jobs, or more time together, we’d have gotten along great.

I was right. The former Sox manager and I spent the last year writing Francona: The Red Sox Years, which hits bookshelves Tuesday. The project was thoroughly collaborative, exhausting, and hilarious.

Of course Shank was willing to let bygones be bygones; there's money to be made here!

The Terry Francona Project

The former Red Sox manager's book will be out next month. You may know that Our Man Shank is the book's co-writer.

When he wasn't on the "Baseball Tonight" set, Francona, along with Dan Shaughnessy, wrote a book about his eight seasons in Boston. It's scheduled to come out in January.

"I hope people want to buy it," he said with a laugh. "It's eight years of a lot of funny [stories], some emotional [stories], a couple sad things. Dan busted his rear end on this thing. First of all, the fact that me and him were together doing it was a shock to me (you are not alone, Tito - Ed.). First time I picked him up, I told him, 'You have to black out the windows because I don't want people to see me driving you around.' I had a year I could do it because under normal circumstances you can't do it. It ended up being kind of fun.

"I think for the most part, if somebody ends up being bent out of shape, that was not ever the intent. It was just to tell the story and I hope people take it that way because I think it's a really good story."

This marks the second time today I read a sentence about Shank that I never thought I would read. I think it's time to start drinking heavily, for the Apocalypse is upon us!

Hired Learning

The Red Sox fired Bobby Valentine on Oct. 4. Today is Oct. 18. Obviously the Red Sox have waited too long to replace Valentine and have thus undermined the 2013 season. Or so insists The CHB.

Unfortunately, as history has so often shown, The CHB is wrong, all wrong!

After the Red Sox fired Grady Little in 2003, they did not hire Terry Francona until Dec. 4. That one turned out OK, or so I seem to recall. 

In The Yankees replaced Buck Showalter with Joe Torre on Nov. 2, 1995. He skippered the Bombers to six pennants and four World Series titles.

When the Cardinals fired interim manager Mike Jorgensen following the 1995 season, they waited until Oct. 23 to hire Tony La Russa. Two more World Series wins there.

By the way, when George Steinbrenner hired Torre, he gave him a two-year deal. So I guess the argument that a contract of fewer than three years equates to lame duck status is invalid, too.

So patience, young grasshopper. After all, we've been waiting nearly 60 years for you to grow a brain.