Feeding the Monster

by Seth Mnookin

  Five days after firing Duquette, the Red Sox dismissed Kerrigan. Third base coach Mike Cubbage, former Montreal Expos manager Felipe Alou, and Cleveland Indians bench coach Grady Little all interviewed for the position. Little, who’d been the Red Sox bench coach from 1997 through 1999, was popular with the players, and his laid-back style and nonconfrontational approach were the polar opposite to that of former manager Jimy Williams. In addition to Henry, Werner, and Lucchino, longtime baseball executive Doug Melvin, who’d worked with Lucchino at Baltimore and had been hired as a consultant to the Red Sox, sat in on the interviews. The new owners all agreed that one of their first priorities would be to make Boston the type of club that players wanted to join. “By the end of 2001, no one wanted to be here,” says Henry. “We knew we had to change that.” The newer members of the team found their acclimization to the Red Sox to be particularly hard. “My first day being in the…clubhouse, it was weird,” Damon said more than two years later. “No one was playing cards, no one was playing video games.” Damon worried that he might be in for a lonely season. “No one was really talking to each other. Everyone was on their own.”

  Beyond that, there was some disagreement about what, exactly, a manager’s job actually was. Lucchino, who began his career in sports convinced that chemistry was basically a bogus notion when it came to team sports—“Don’t talk to me about chemistry, talk to me about biology,” he used to say—had increasingly come to believe that a baseball manager’s main responsibility was keeping his team relaxed and motivated during a grueling seven-month season. At least 75 percent of a manager’s job, Lucchino thought, consisted of managing people and personalities; only the remainder concerned making strategic judgments. “These guys get fried,” Lucchino says of the players. “It’s very draining, and that can create some really difficult mental moments. The psychological dimension of the game is so damn important.”

  Henry thought more attention should be paid to managers who were more sophisticated with their in-game approach. He was most impressed with Alou, and Lucchino told him if that’s whom Henry wanted, the Red Sox should hire him. However, Lucchino said, he and Melvin felt Grady Little would be a better choice. Lucchino emphasized how well liked—almost loved—Little was among the players, and how he’d be able to relax a clearly talented and just as clearly anxious and unhappy team.

  Initially, Henry was unconvinced. Outside of stressing that he wanted to use Ramirez more in the outfield—in 2001, Ramirez had played most of his games as the team’s designated hitter—Little had not said much that impressed him. Henry also feared that Little’s hunch-based approach would be out of tune with the cutting-edge statistical analysis the team planned on incorporating. After all, Henry thought, what good was knowing what matchups or usages were likely to be most effective if the manager didn’t take advantage of them? “I couldn’t imagine him being our manager based on what I heard in the interview,” says Henry. But while forging their partnership, Henry, Werner, and Lucchino had promised each other that despite the fact that Henry was the principal owner and had ultimate authority over the team, the three of them would make decisions by consensus rather than by fiat. Henry agreed to hire Little.

  On March 11, Grady Little was introduced as the 43rd manager of the Boston Red Sox. Lucchino’s sense that he’d be a good influence seemed to be immediately validated: When Little walked into the team’s clubhouse for the first time as manager, the players greeted him with a standing ovation. Meeting with the media that day, Little showed off the folksy style that would become his trademark. “I’ll tell you like I’m going to tell the players,” he said. “Just buckle up. We’re getting ready to have a good ride.”

  With the team’s two most pressing personnel moves completed, Lucchino shifted his focus to remaking the internal workings of a Red Sox organization that had been infected from top to bottom with the paranoia and divisiveness that had marked much of Dan Duquette’s and John Harrington’s tenures. “I wanted to almost pollinate people here from San Diego, to put people in with a certain work ethic and talent,” he says. “I knew the transition would not be so hard if we had people in all areas of the operation who sort of believed in the gospel we preached.” Just as he had in San Diego, Lucchino wanted to import a philosophy he sometimes referred to as WAAF, pronounced waff, for We Are All Fans.

  Charles Steinberg was one of Lucchino’s first hires, as the team’s executive vice president of public affairs. Steinberg would be responsible for reshaping the organization’s approach to, and relationship with, the outside world. Janet Marie Smith, the Baltimore-based architect who had helped plan, design, and build Camden Yards, followed soon after. She’d help the team as it made some immediate changes that would make Fenway more accommodating and as the new owners examined whether to stay in the old ballpark for the long-term future. Then Lucchino set his sights on two people he considered the brightest rising stars in San Diego: Padres executive director of corporate partnerships and broadcasting Sam Kennedy and Padres director of baseball operations Theo Epstein.

  Kennedy and Epstein had grown up close to Fenway. They’d been teammates on the Brookline High School baseball team, and were members of the school’s 1991 graduating class. Epstein’s working relationship with Lucchino began soon after; in 1992, while on summer break from Yale, Epstein landed a summer internship with the Orioles, working under Steinberg. A few years later, during a particularly cold and snowy New Haven winter, Epstein read that Lucchino and Steinberg had ended up in Southern California, and he applied for a job with the Padres. In San Diego, Lucchino took Epstein under his wing and encouraged the recent Yale grad to take law school classes at night. Before long, Epstein got his law degree from the University of San Diego, and in 2000, was named the Padres director of baseball operations.

  Speaking of Epstein and Kennedy, Lucchino says, “These were two different areas—baseball operations and corporate sponsorship—that were quite important to us. I was pretty determined to press John [Moores] to request permission to talk to them.” In baseball, there’s an unspoken rule that clubs will allow their employees who are under contract to interview for positions with other teams if the new job would be a promotion. Lucchino’s strained relationship with Moores initially squashed the Red Sox’s ability even to woo the young executives. “These were not just promotions, but opportunities for them to return home to a sort of dream job they had always hoped for,” Lucchino says. “I couldn’t imagine someone standing in the way.”

  Before long, Lucchino began to joke about “freeing the Brookline Two.” By the end of spring training, Moores had relented, and on March 24, Epstein and Kennedy were hired as the Red Sox assistant general manager and vice president of corporate development, respectively, both crucial positions within the organization. Epstein would have more power than traditional assistant GMs, and would report directly to Henry and Lucchino in addition to interim general manager Mike Port. Lucchino intended to groom Epstein as a prime candidate to take over for Port one day. For his part, Kennedy would be instrumental in the organization’s efforts to build up its nonbaseball revenue.

  “It literally is a dream come true,” Epstein said of his job with the Red Sox at the time. “I grew up one mile from Fenway, and bought standing-room tickets and moved down to the box seats because I knew which season-ticket holders wouldn’t be there. I got into baseball in 1992 and definitely had a goal in mind to work for the Red Sox. I never thought it would happen so soon.” Privately, Epstein was wondering if the new ownership would be able to change how the Red Sox did business. “We were confused by the way things worked in Boston, looking in from afar,” he says. “It was an atypical baseball operation structure in terms of how they worked with other clubs. We heard some horror stories about the dysfunction, but I assumed with Larry and the new team in place, it would be different.”*

  *Beck once told a reporter who’d queried him about the state of the clubhouse’s morale, “Other than everybody hating each other? Grea
t.”

  *Epstein and Kennedy weren’t the only Padres executives to make the trek to Boston. In June, Mike Dee was named the Red Sox vice president of business affairs; he’d oversee the day-to-day business operations of the team. In February 2003, former Padres broadcaster Glenn Geffner was named the Red Sox director of communications.

  Chapter 16

  The Love Affair Begins

  SPRING IN BOSTON is not dissimilar to Thomas Hobbes’s famous description of the life of man: nasty, brutish, and short. After the bitter cold of a New England winter, April’s temperatures stubbornly stall in the 40s and 50s. By mid-to-late May, there’s a glimpse of the idyllic, clear-sky, 70-degree weather that can make the Northeast seem so wondrous. Those days pass quickly, and before these mild days and breezy nights can be properly appreciated, the heat and humidity of Boston’s summer take over.

  April 1, 2002, Opening Day at Fenway Park, demonstrated once again why baseball’s boys of summer much preferred playing when it was actually summertime. As the Red Sox prepared to open their first season under new ownership, the temperatures remained in the 40s, a bad omen for starter Pedro Martinez, who preferred pitching in warmer weather. Despite the cold, it was hard for Red Sox fans not to be optimistic about what lay ahead—maybe this season would really be the one that ended without people once again telling themselves to “wait until next year.” For the first time since September 2000, the injury-plagued trio of Martinez, Nomar Garciaparra, and catcher Jason Varitek would all be in the lineup on the same day. Those three team stalwarts were, along with Manny Ramirez, Johnny Damon, Derek Lowe, and Trot Nixon, within a year or two of 30, often considered the age at which a baseball player is in his prime. Jimy Williams and Carl Everett seemed like distant nightmares, Dan Duquette and John Harrington safely in the rear-view mirror. If everyone performed up to potential, the team had a good chance of being in the playoff hunt come September.

  Even Fenway itself looked better than it had just six months earlier, when the Red Sox ended their mess of a 2001 campaign. Four hundred new seats had been added, most of them in roof boxes along the first and third base lines and on top of the right-field grandstand. In addition, two rows of $200 seats had been built on the field—the dugout seats, they were called.* The paint was touched up, the dugout cleaned out. More concession stands were added throughout the park.

  This, John Henry thought to himself, is a good start. He’d been looking forward to this day for months. As the Red Sox finished their batting practice in preparation for an afternoon matchup with the Toronto Blue Jays, Henry made his way down through the park’s concourse and walked over to the inside of Gate A, Fenway’s first entrance on Yawkey Way. When, at around eleven thirty in the morning, the ancient metal roll-up gates clanked into the ceiling, Henry was there, greeting patrons.

  One of the first fans Henry greeted was Tony Pedriali, who announced that he was from the nearby suburb of Quincy. “I’m speechless,” Pedriali told a reporter from the Boston Herald. “You come into the ballpark and there’s the guy who owns the team, thanking you for your support. Could you imagine John Harrington ever doing that?” Pedriali shook his head. “He just said, ‘Thanks for coming.’ I’m shocked!” Before long, a small mob had formed around the new owner, offering advice (build a new ballpark!), exhortations (bring back Clemens!), and sharing memories (I saw Ted Williams hit one over the Monster!).

  The pregame ceremony was the type of nostalgic, celebratory production Charles Steinberg specialized in when he worked in Baltimore and San Diego. An enormous American flag was draped over the left field wall as Aerosmith’s (and Boston’s) Steven Tyler sang “The Star-Spangled Banner.” When Tyler finished, 22 members of the New England Patriots, fresh off their last-second Super Bowl victory over the St. Louis Rams, emerged from behind the flag. (The Patriots, no one needed to be reminded, were New England’s first world champions since the 1986 Celtics of Larry Bird, Robert Parish, and Kevin McHale.) As the Patriots’ unofficial anthem, U2’s “Beautiful Day,” blared from the PA system, quarterback (and Super Bowl MVP) Tom Brady led his teammates onto the field, with defensive back Lawyer Milloy hoisting the National Football League’s Vince Lombardi Trophy above his head. “You love this town,” Bono sang, as the football stars made their way to the mound. “It’s a beautiful day / Don’t let it get away.” As the sold-out audience cheered, Fenway was as loud as it had been in years.

  Even the losing bidders for the team seemed to be reveling in the atmosphere. Before the game, Henry presented Joe O’Donnell with a $150,000 check from The Red Sox Foundation for the Joey Fund, a charitable organization O’Donnell named after his son, who died of cystic fibrosis when he was 12. During the game, Henry and O’Donnell sat in the front row of the new dugout seats; Larry Lucchino and former Senate majority leader and Red Sox limited partner George Mitchell settled in just behind them.

  “I think pretty quickly we made some headway,” says Werner, speaking of the region’s relationship with the team’s new owners. “There was some concern that because we were from small-market clubs that we’d have some other agenda instead of winning, so just our continually articulating how important that was helped a lot. And we were creative. We kept coming up with creative ways to thank the fans and to make them feel like an integral part of the experience, and pretty soon, you know, people were saying, ‘These guys aren’t so bad.’ ”*

  The game itself, alas, did not live up to its hype. Pedro Martinez struggled through one of the worst outings of his bejeweled career, giving up eight runs in three innings. After Boston clawed back, the Sox and the Jays eventually settled into an 11–11 tie before Red Sox closer Ugueth Urtain Urbina let in the winning run in the top of the ninth inning. Urbina, reviled among reporters as one of the nastiest men ever to set foot in a major league clubhouse,* memorably (and theatrically) pumped his fist after recording a strikeout to end the inning, apparently unaware it looked foolish to celebrate after blowing the game.

  Unlike in so many years past, though, this Opening Day loss did not feel like a harbinger of things to come. Before the second game of the season, Red Sox players themselves manned Fenway’s gates, greeting visibly nonplussed patrons, and soon the team ran up a four-game winning streak. Before long, Pedro Martinez seemed to return to his indomitable form. In mid-April, the Sox took three of four from the Yankees, with Boston’s final victory against New York starting a six-game winning streak. By April 22, the team had an 8-0 record away from Fenway, and was off to the best road start in team history. And on April 27, Derek Lowe, who’d been mercilessly booed as the team’s star-crossed closer the year before, pitched a no-hitter against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

  Henry and Werner, meanwhile, found themselves continually marveling at how different owning the Boston Red Sox was from their previous experiences in baseball. For the first time, they could afford to have a payroll with high-priced stars. Instead of begging fans for support, they found a region that was both in love with the Red Sox and almost laughingly appreciative of any efforts the owners made on their behalf. To this day, Werner still remembers how shocked he was after witnessing the devotion of Red Sox fans firsthand. “[Sometime in] that first April, there was a rain delay. It was freezing—like 45 degrees,” Werner says. “And it just started to pour. The rain delay probably lasted 90 minutes, maybe two hours and everyone disappeared—presumably to the comfort of their homes. And when the team took their places again on the field, the whole place miraculously filled up again. I just found that stunning—after having to practically beg fans to come to the ballpark in San Diego, it was amazing. It really said volumes about the passion that Red Sox fans have. And that just makes you want to work all the harder because you want to kill yourself to give something back.”

  After a May 9, 5–1 win over Oakland, the Sox were 24-7, tops in their division, and riding a nine-game winning streak. Martinez and Lowe were a combined 9-1, and were near the league’s best in earned run average. Ramirez was leading the league in batt
ing. The Red Sox looked prepared to make a formidable run.

  Charles Steinberg, meanwhile, was showing Boston fans what it felt like to have an organization that didn’t take them for granted. With the Red Sox out of town on Father’s Day, Steinberg orchestrated an on-field extravaganza. The event sold out in two days, and more than 20,000 people showed up, many of them fathers and sons, equipped with pocket cameras and baseball gloves they used to play catch on Fenway’s fabled grass.

  That proved to be a warmup for what was to come. The biggest success of the year was the July memorial in honor of Ted Williams, who died July 5 at age 83. Two-and-a-half weeks later, the day before the Red Sox were opening a homestand, Fenway was transformed into a living memorial for one of the greatest hitters who ever lived. On the morning of July 22, the team opened the park to the public, and fans and mourners were allowed to walk out on the field to view Williams memorabilia, including Williams’s plaque from the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, which had been loaned to the team and placed along the left field wall. A large 9, in honor of Williams’s uniform number, had been mowed into the left-field grass and covered in flowers. An American flag was draped across the Green Monster, and the two billboards above the Wall had pictures of Williams. On the infield, the grounds crew had painted .406 (for Williams’s 1941 batting average), USMC (for Williams’s stint in the Marines), and 521 (his career home run total).