Francona: The Red Sox Years

by Terry Francona

  Already a three-time NBA champ (he would win three more after baseball), Jordan was making $30 million per year in endorsements when he joined Francona’s bus-riding Barons in the Southern League in ’94. The Barons paid Jordan $850 per month and 35-year-old Terry Francona told Michael he had to run out his pop-ups.

  Jordan was in the White Sox system because White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf also owned the Chicago Bulls. The White Sox made just a couple of requests of Francona: Don’t bat Michael in the number-nine spot—too embarrassing. And don’t refer to the experiment as a “circus.”

  It could have been a circus, but Francona managed to keep things relatively normal. Hard Copy loved the Barons. Tom Brokaw would appear, and Francona would say, “Michael shows up on time, he works hard, and he’s a great guy.” And that was that. It was an adjustment for the rest of the minor leaguers—who are generally happy if their games are broadcast on the radio—but the manager was not going to be starstruck. Francona’s biggest concession to Jordan was to provide an all-access pass for Michael’s bodyguard, George Koehler. Jordan’s main contributions were the luxury bus and a club record 467,867 fans. The Barons finished 65–74. Jordan hit .202 with 51 RBI and 30 stolen bases.

  “Michael respected what we were doing so much, and that made it work,” said Francona.

  After the season, the White Sox asked Francona to manage Jordan again with the Scottsdale Scorpions in the Arizona Fall League. It was there that Francona first encountered Nomar Garciaparra, a young shortstop out of Georgia Tech who’d signed with the Red Sox.

  Francona enjoyed his time with Jordan. They played golf together in Scottsdale with White Sox GM Ron Schueler and professional golfer Billy Mayfair. The manager beat Jordan out of $800 on the 18th hole when Mayfair got Francona out of a sand trap by throwing the Titleist onto the green when Jordan wasn’t looking.

  A couple of times Francona even played in pickup basketball games with Jordan. Michael got angry once when an exhausted Francona took the last shot in a best-to-11 game.

  “I always take the last shot,” said Jordan.

  “Now you know how I feel when I watch you try to hit a curveball,” said the manager.

  After the 1995 season in Birmingham, Francona returned to the big leagues as third-base coach of the 1996 Detroit Tigers under manager, and old friend, Buddy Bell. The ’96 Tigers were one of the most buffeted teams in hardball history, losing 109 games and providing nightly fodder for the wiseguys on ESPN. Francona was just happy to be back in the majors. The money was better. No more five-hour bus rides or Comfort Inns.

  One of his favorite memories from the 1996 season was throwing batting practice to 11-year-old Prince Fielder in Tiger Stadium. Prince was the son of Tiger wideload first baseman Cecil Fielder, and the little big man put a couple of balls into the upper deck. Francona teased Prince when the youngster failed to pick up the balls in the cage after hitting. Picking up the balls in the cage after hitting is a universal practice in professional baseball—even if you are an 11-year-old future big league millionaire named Prince.

  After the 1996 season, Francona got an important phone call from Tigers GM Randy Smith as he was driving from Detroit back to Tucson to join Jacque and the four kids.

  “I was in Albuquerque and about up to my neck in Taco Bell wrappers when Randy called me,” Francona recalled. “I thought I was getting fired because we’d lost all those games. He said, ‘Do you know anybody with the Phillies? They want to interview you.’ I told him I didn’t know anyone with the Phillies. He said, ‘Well, give them a call.’ I immediately called Buddy Bell. He knew why I was calling. I asked what I should do, and he said, ‘Go interview. You won’t get the job, but it will be good experience.’ About three weeks later, I was the manager of the Phillies. I hadn’t had any major league interviews. I’d only been a major league coach for one year.”

  The Phillies had fired Jim Fregosi after the ’96 season and were looking for a young talent to steer them through a rebuilding phase. They’d been in decline since losing the 1993 World Series against the Toronto Blue Jays.

  Francona was surprised to be considered. Phillies GM Lee Thomas had played many years against Tito, but Terry remembered only one encounter with the Phillies boss. Back in ’94, when he was managing Jordan in the Arizona Fall League, Thomas had asked Francona for a baseball autographed by Jordan.

  “I’d have given him a whole autographed bat if I knew it would have given me a chance to manage,” said Francona.

  Thomas checked with many of his baseball friends. He got a strong recommendation from Joe Torre, manager of the World Champion New York Yankees.

  Francona was 36 years old when the Phillies named him manager. He was only five years removed from watching Gilligan, the Skipper, and Thurston Howell III on his townhouse couch in Tucson.

  Armed with his first multi-year contract and a $50,000 mortgage loan from Phillies owner Bill Giles, he moved Jacque and the kids from Tucson to Yardley, Pennsylvania, just 32 miles from Veterans Stadium in downtown Philadelphia.

  Francona’s four seasons as manager of the Phillies produced an aggregate record of 285–363. The Phillies never contended and never finished above .500. The media was tough, and the fans were worse. Former Phillies World Series hero Larry Bowa had been the scrappy favorite to replace Fregosi. Shortly after he was hired, Francona was booed at a Philadelphia 76ers game when his image appeared on the Jumbotron above center court. His tires were slashed on Fan Appreciation Day at Veterans Stadium. He was ridiculed for giving Scott Rolen a day off on Scott Rolen Bobblehead Day. He was ripped when he let Bobby Abreu sit out on opening day against Randy Johnson because Abreu didn’t want to face the fearsome southpaw. There was a popular notion that star pitcher Curt Schilling was running the team. All the experts said Francona was too much of a players’ manager. He didn’t have enough rules. There wasn’t enough discipline. He played cards with his ballplayers. Philadelphia sports talk jock Angelo Cataldi crushed Francona almost daily.

  “They started moving my parking spot so I could sneak out the door,” Francona remembered. “People were getting aggressive.”

  “It was hard seeing him get kicked around like that,” said Mills, who coached first base for Francona in Philadelphia. “He was doing a damn good job with what he had. The wiseguys on the radio didn’t know him and didn’t know what he was trying to do.”

  Francona had a roster peppered with players who struggled at the big league level. His closer, Wayne Gomes, was rumored to be a fan of eating hot dogs in the bullpen during games.

  “I brought him into a game one night, and he had mustard on his uniform,” Francona recalled. “I told him he had to cut that out, and he claimed the mustard got on him when a fan threw a hot dog at him. The worst part of the whole story was—we were playing at home! I remember walking back to the dugout thinking, Boy, this is where I’m at in my career. My closer has mustard on his jersey.”

  Managing the Phillies was nothing like coaching third base for Buddy Bell in Detroit. He took the losses personally. Many a night a fretful Francona, lost in thought, would zip past the Yardley exit on Route 95 North, then turn back when he started seeing signs for New York. After losing 97 games in 2000, Francona was fired by Phillies general manager Ed Wade.

  “I was fired on the last day of the season, before the game,” Francona remembered. “After the game, I went golfing with two of my coaches, Chuck Cottier and Millsie. It was weird because I knew the firing was coming. I thought, This will be good. I’m done. I can take a deep breath. This will be a relief. But it wasn’t. I realized that I had spent all this time with these people and I had all these emotions. It was hard for me. I didn’t handle it very well.”

  He quickly landed another baseball job, one that didn’t require him to wear a uniform. In 2001 Francona served as a special assistant under Cleveland executives Mark Shapiro and (GM) John Hart. It gave him a new look at the inside operations of a baseball team. He traveled to minor league affiliates. He
sat in on the draft. He scouted other major league teams, searching for a new center fielder for the Indians. (The Phillies provided citizen Francona with a security guard when he sat behind home plate at Veterans Stadium.) He ultimately recommended that the Indians acquire Milton Bradley, prophetically reporting, “Nobody comes close with tools, but my inability to connect with him throws up a little bit of a red flag.”

  Francona’s first year out of uniform was a good learning experience, and more fun than he expected it to be.

  He returned to the big league dugout as Jerry Narron’s bench coach with the Texas Rangers in 2002. This was somewhat awkward because a bench coach is generally a best friend and aide-de-camp of the manager and Francona was neither. He didn’t know Narron particularly well and resisted the opportunity when first approached by then–Texas GM Hart. Narron said he was comfortable with Francona, so they worked the ’02 season side by side in Arlington, Texas. The Rangers finished last, Narron was fired, and when Buck Showalter was hired, the entire staff went looking for new work.

  Francona felt he was ready to manage again. Mets general manager Steve Phillips called him to interview for the job that came open when Bobby Valentine was fired. (The irony of this would not surface until 2011.) Francona knew he had no shot at the Mets job, but he went anyway and enjoyed his give-and-take with Phillips. The Mets boss explained that sometimes you have an interview for “down the road.” Francona appreciated Phillips’s candor and generosity with his time. Art Howe got the job—the same Art Howe who won 102 and 103 games his last two seasons working for Billy Beane.

  Seattle was a more realistic option for Francona. The Mariners needed a manager, and Francona believed he had a chance. But something happened the night before he was scheduled to meet with Seattle boss Pat Gillick. Making notes, preparing thoughts in his Seattle hotel room, Francona felt pain in his chest. Then there was pain in his arms. Sweating, he told himself, I came all the way out here to have a heart attack. I should have just done this at home.

  He stayed up all night. In the morning he rode on an exercise bike in the hotel fitness room and did a few push-ups. He arrived at the interview 90 minutes early, but the pain and the flop-sweats came back when he started answering Gillick’s questions. Several times he asked Gillick to repeat himself.

  “He interviewed all day, half-dead,” said Jacque.

  “To this day I tease Gillick that his questions almost killed me,” said Francona.

  It was no laughing matter. Francona’s multiple knee surgeries had left him with blood clots, staph infections, and internal bleeding. When he had both knees scoped to alleviate staph infections in October after the 2002 season, the procedure led to a pulmonary embolism on each side of his lungs. Within a month of the Gillick interview, he was in the hospital and doctors were considering the amputation of his right leg. After a major surgery in which his leg was split open to reduce pressure and allow fluid to drain, he spent three weeks at home in bed, unable to go downstairs or to make it to the bathroom by himself. There was massive clotting. He stopped worrying about the Mets and the Mariners. He worried about walking with a limp for the rest of his life, losing his leg, or dying.

  “I think I probably should have died with all that happened,” he said. “There were a couple nights in the hospital where I was thinking, I can’t take this anymore. The nurses would come running in because I’d stop breathing. I was in bad shape. There were people around who did not think I was going to make it. I know I came real close to losing the leg. Sometimes stories get enhanced, but that one actually gets downplayed.”

  Pain medication was a critical part of recovery.

  “I lived on it at that time when I was in the hospital,” he said. “I learned every trick in the book, getting a lot of help from the nurses. You keep giving yourself a blot to get through the next 20 minutes. When I left the hospital, I was on heavy-duty drugs, and it was tough.”

  In recovery after Christmas, able to walk around a little again, he heard from new Oakland manager Ken Macha. Francona and Macha had first crossed paths in Francona’s final spring training with the Expos in 1986. Macha was a roving coach/instructor with the Expos and was sympathetic toward Francona, a fellow western Pennsylvanian. Francona was cut loose before the start of the season and eventually signed with the Cubs, but Macha never forgot about him. When they managed against one another in the Arizona Fall League in 1994, Macha told Francona that he’d keep him in mind if he ever had a chance to manage in the majors. Francona didn’t think much about it at the time. A lot of friends talk that way. It seemed unlikely. But when Macha got the job in Oakland, he called Francona and offered him a job as bench coach.

  It was a good offer. Francona knew he wasn’t going to be managing in the majors in 2003. Sitting alongside Macha with the playoff-bound A’s looked a lot better than lingering in last place in Arlington, Texas. But Francona wasn’t healthy, and his recovery was slow. A couple of weeks before spring training, Francona called Macha to remove himself from the Oakland coaching staff. He told Macha it wouldn’t be fair. He was unable to walk to his car. How was he going to help Macha in his first managing gig with the contending A’s?

  Macha told Francona not to worry. The A’s didn’t need Francona to throw batting practice or hit grounders to infielders. Macha wanted Francona for his baseball mind and his positive attitude.

  “He saved me,” said Francona. “He said, ‘I don’t give a shit. Just come out and be my bench coach.’ You have no idea how that made me feel. I hung up the phone and told my wife, ‘I’ve got to get healthy enough to go out there.’ When I flew to Phoenix to join them, the walk to the rental car was the longest walk I’d made in three months. Nobody had any idea how sick I’d been.”

  At the start, he had trouble bending over to pick up a baseball. He wore a helmet while pitching batting practice. His legs would swell and stretch his pants by the end of the workouts. At night he’d go back to his hotel room and elevate his legs until morning. He was miserable, and it was hard to hide his limitations. Games at the Metrodome in Minnesota were particularly difficult because of a series of steps that led from the dugout to the clubhouse. Everybody in baseball knew about the Metrodome steps. Cal Ripken Jr. made them an Olympic event, trying to get to the clubhouse in a minimal number of strides. For Francona, those steps were Kilimanjaro. It would take him as much as five minutes to get from the dugout to the visitors’ clubhouse in the Metrodome. He’d walk three or four steps, then sit and rest. He was embarrassed.

  “I was on so much pain medication,” he remembered. “Oxycontin. I weaned myself off that year, but it took almost half the season. I needed it. Anybody who had my body is going to have to have a certain amount of medication. I never took oxy again after that. It scared me. But I could see why people get hooked.

  “I learned how to maintain. My right leg is so damaged, so many clots went through there. Sometimes it gets so swollen, my leg barely fits in my pants. I’ve got a degenerative hip, but that’s so far down the list I can’t even get to it. I’m cold all the time because of the blood thinners. It’s all uncomfortable, but it’s not going to make me die now. It just pisses me off.”

  Francona’s health improved as the 2003 baseball season played out. Macha gave him a lot of responsibility, and the A’s of Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder, and Barry Zito were good. Francona handled charts, dealt with players, and found himself enjoying baseball again. This was the year when Michael Lewis’s Moneyball hit the national best-seller list, and Francona took delight in holding a copy of the tome in front of his face every time Macha and Billy Beane came aboard a team bus or charter aircraft.

  Francona wasn’t with the A’s when Lewis did his reporting on the 2002 Oakland season, but he saw what it was like for Macha to work for Beane in 2003.

  “I don’t think the portrayal in the book was an exaggeration,” said Francona. “There were times when I’d walk by Macha’s office after a game and Billy would be sitting there with a lot of strong opin
ions flying. I’d come in after and tell Ken, ‘I know what I’m supposed to be doing is cheering you up. I wish I could do a better job of it.’”

  Francona’s place alongside Macha on the A’s bench gave him a firsthand look at the team he would manage in 2004. The Red Sox and A’s were first-round opponents in the 2003 playoffs, a series that unfolded in spectacular fashion, with the Red Sox winning a fifth-and-deciding game, 4–3, on a Monday night in Oakland. The A’s won the first two games at home and looked ready to wrap up the series at Fenway when bad things started happening to the Western Division champs. Baserunning blunders crushed Oakland in Game 3. (Francona was one of a group in the Oakland dugout who tried to get Eric Byrnes’s attention after Byrnes failed to touch home plate in the game’s most crucial play.) The A’s looked like they had things in hand the next night, but Oakland closer Keith Foulke couldn’t hold a 4–3 lead in the eighth, and the series went back to Oakland for a fifth-and-deciding game.

  The future manager of the Red Sox got an inside look at Boston’s backdoor operations after the A’s dropped Game 4 in Boston on Sunday. It was a quick turnaround, with both teams flying coast to coast to get back to the Bay Area for a winner-take-all game scheduled to start 3,000 miles away late Monday afternoon. The A’s trip turned out to be more difficult than that of the Red Sox. Oakland’s team buses left Fenway for Hanscom Field in Bedford, Massachusetts, where they encountered extraordinary security measures. No one will ever admit it, but Francona learned later that the A’s delay might have been due to the influence of Boston’s longtime traveling secretary, Jack McCormick. McCormick is a former Boston police officer and deeply connected with greater Boston’s security and aviation networks.

  “Everybody in our party was almost cavity-searched,” said Francona. “We sat on that plane for three hours. I guarantee you the Red Sox got to the West Coast two hours quicker than we did. After I came to Boston, I realized what kind of pull Jack has. He was pretty proud of himself about that one.”