Et Tu, John Henry?

 

Note: I first posted this just before Terry Francona's departure from Boston became official.  While the parting of ways seems to be mutually agreed upon, it doesn't change my basic feeling that this was not the right way for Francona to go out.

The Red Sox collapse was spectacular to witness.  I must admit that I really didn't think they would blow it in the end.  I figured that at the very least they would end up having to play the one game play-off, and then who knows?  Anything could have happened then.  In September they stopped pitching and hitting and had to deal with under performing stars and head case pitchers, not to mention the injuries.  It really was like the pre-2004 Sox who could never seem to get out of their own way and found new and increasingly torturous ways of losing out each year.  I'm hearing now that there is a good chance Terry "Tito" Francona will be out as manager.  There are many people to blame for Boston's September debacle, and certainly the manager has to take some of the heat as well.  It comes with the territory.  But he should not be the scape goat.  Shame on the Red Sox if they fire Francona.

In 1978 Don Zimmer's Sox blew a 14 and a half game lead to the Yankees, and then lost the one game play-off, a game that they were leading in the seventh inning when Bucky (Expletive Deleted) Dent famously took Mike Torrez over the Monster.   Zimm was given two more seasons as manager before being asked to move on.  Joe Torre's '04 Yanks suffered ignominy of being the first, and so far the only, Major League team to blow a three nothing series lead when they lost to the Sox in seven in the ALCS.  With it ended the mythic "Curse of the Bambino."  In spite of presiding over the greatest collapse in baseball history Torre managed the Yankees three more seasons.  In the Boston dugout that year was Terry Francona.  His team was considered dead in July, then scraped back to get the wild card.  After losing 19-8 in game three of the ALCS they were again left for dead.  By the time it was over the hated Yankees could do nothing as their blood rivals celebrated victory on their own field, before a stunned Yankee Stadium crowd.  After dispatching the Cardinals in four games Francona's team brought the title home to Boston for the first time since 1918.  That's 86 years between championships, if you're keeping count.  Don't you think that the man who broke "the Curse" deserves the same chance at redemption as Don Zimmer and Joe Torre?

And isn't redemption at the heart of the Red Sox story?  As a Yankee fan I can never hurt a Red Sox fan with the simple mention of Dent's or Aaron (Same Middle Name as Bucky) Boone's name again.  We may defeat them head to head in the future, even embarrass them along the way.  But nothing the Yankees will ever do will top how they beat us in '04.  They have one up on us, even if they never finish ahead of us again in our lifetime (highly unlikely, but you get it). All the pain of 1946, '67, '75, '78, '86, and 2003 when they came sooooo close and fell short were washed away by Curt Schilling's bloody sock.  And the manager had to take some credit too.  He also had a difficult to handle club house that year, dubbed "The Idiots" by Johnny Damon.  But he held it together and brought them home safe.  He deserves better than to be dismissed like this, if indeed that is what happens.  He deserves his chance to come back from this like he helped bring the Red Sox back from decades of failure to two Series titles in the double zeros.

Every manager is hired to be fired.  There is a time when even the best manager loses his club house or is tuned out by his players.  Change can be good for both the team and the skipper in that situation. But when a manager has had such an historic run with a team he should be given a fair chance to prove he's still the right man for the job.  I'm not sure that the man known as Tito is being afforded that privilege.  Francona is a class act who deserves better than this.  I hope Red Sox owner John Henry takes a day or two and cools down before he stabs the pride of Beantown in the back.