The politics of it we can't get into, we don't know. The participants can't even agree exactly why or how.
The fact is today that the Terry Francona era in Boston Red Sox history is over.
When the Boston Red Sox lost their final game of the season Wednesday night to the Baltimore Orioles, it had already been a full September of concern and consternation over a precipitous drop from a 9.5 game lead in the AL Wild Card into sub-.500 ball with a hot competitor appearing bigger in their rear-view mirror. Easing those worries were memories of numerous and famous Red Sox comebacks from "idiots" and "cowboys" with their backs to the wall or on the floor. With a little luck, they could fall into a Wild Card tie-breaker, win that, continue on to the playoffs and points then on after.
Three minutes after the Orioles ran the winning run across home plate, the Tampa Bay Rays defeated the New York Yankees and nailed the final coffin in Boston's 2011 baseball season. Torches were immediately lit and pitchforks handed out across Red Sox Nation. Which players didn't come through? Who was a bad signing? Who failed to lead these guys? Who do we trade and who do we fire?
As to be expected in the aftermath of any team's failure to perform, nevermind a month-long meltdown into the record books, the targeting of the field leader and the executive who provides them was immediate. Almost as immediate, at least the next day, was a press conference where the executive exonerated the manager from blame. It wasn't his fault, Theo Epstein declared, it was a team failure that everyone would take responsibility for. They would take a look in the mirror, he said, and see if they were the ones to fix it.
It has been decided today that Terry Francona is not.
Whether that decision came from the team who decided not to pick up his option or from an ambivalent Francona is vague. Francona in his announcement uncharacteristically dropped bits of personal insight that did not expose his players in a positive light, a cold analysis of their lack of resolve and urgency and his failure to instill either in them. He preferred to speak in generalities, refusing to specify any one player, and still pledged his respect and affection to his players and team who he felt were ready to respond to a different voice now. Tito spoke also of a need for commitment, something he did not sense from his employers, who in their following press conference expressed confusion and surprise in his disappointment and averred that they had done nothing different, nothing less than the encouragement and support they had offered him the previous eight years. While he says it was his decision, Francona claims that the Red Sox never even made the offer to pick up his option; the front office says Francona intimated he was ready to move on.
Regardless, there could be no better time for Francona to leave. Every workplace separation has its element of unanswered questions, a vacuum usually filled by the gossip brewed up by gazelles at the water cooler passing on what they've heard or suspected or theorized, and the almost under-breath mumbling as Terry Francona passes through a door held open by the Red Sox only helps fuel that here. To stay would only mire him in what he was already stuck in, a paycheck-fueled rebuild of a team still rolling with parts from 2004's and 2007's championships with the obviously difficult results. David Ortiz, Jason Varitik, Jonathan Papelbon, and Tim Wakefield lead the list in longest-held yet under-performing Red Sox, while luxury boat anchors like J.D. Drew and Daisuke Matsuzaka sit alongside new budget-busters Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzales and John Lackey, who did little but counter the good play from younger champions Dustin Pedroia and Jacoby Elsbury. Simply the make-up of such a team would guarantee frustration, resentment, division, a sense of quit. Ortiz, when expressing surprise at the dismissal of Francona, said the only problem he had with his manager was his benching in 2010; other than that, they "were cool." Considering that was over a year ago and Ortiz's wobbly performance then and since, we wonder how true that is and how "cool" they really are. This is the same manager who had to deal with the Manny Ramirez departure, and we can only imagine the other personnel flotsam Francona had to deal with on a daily basis in the clubhouse despite his reputation as a boss who lets his guys be guys, a "player's manager."
Francona's predecessor, Grady Little, was similarly considered a "players' manager," and it was that faith in his pitcher Pedro Martinez in the 8th inning of the 7th game of the 2003 ALCS that his dismissal is generally hung upon. Little knew -- or should have known, the supposition goes -- that Pedro breaks down after 100 pitches and the brilliant bullpen should have been called to close out the five remaining outs and send the Sox back to the Series after 80-something years. Instead, Pedro blew the lead, the game and the series were lost to the Yankees, who eventually lost the World Series to the Florida Marlins, from whom Terry Francona and his Red Sox would claim the Commissioner's Trophy in 2004. In their September song of 2011, Francona's Red Sox failed to play .500 ball, couldn't win two games in a row, pitched a league-worst overall ERA of 5.84 and incredible starters' ERA of 7.08. After all that, now days after the final game it is rumored that beer was allowed in the clubhouse, possibly for the last two years. Nobody we've heard was complaining two years ago, or even last year, but now it's an issue. We've seen this in Beantown previously, after Johnny Damon left, after Manny Ramirez left, after Roger Clemens left, a trickle of information is let out into the media stream after the separation, enough to make the leaving employee a little less golden and desirable, a little "kick me" post-it note slapped on their back on the way out. Nevermind the Milwaukee Brewers have openly confirmed their available keg in their players' clubhouse at both home and away games, the implication is Francona was giving long leash to his players concurrent to the lack of playoff appearances, allowing anarchy to usurp their winning ways. Nevermind that Francona brought those winning years to Boston, that management coddles its stars in their possession and drop-kick them on the way out, now is the time for scribes and bloggers and all citizen of Red Sox Nation to, like their ancestors in Salem centuries ago, cook up the numbers, burn through the books, identify the witches responsible for the ills of today and dispatch them accordingly.
It has already been noted the Red Sox went 6-18 since Bill Buckner made a guest appearance on the television show "Curb Your Enthusiasm."
More torches and pitchforks, please.
