An Open Letter To Red Sox Management

05Aug12

You guys have totally screwed this up.

In five short seasons you’ve gone from World Series champions to the most dysfunctional laughing stock of Major League Baseball.

You’ve spent more money on players who don’t play here than some teams spend on their entire payroll.

You fired the best Red Sox manager I’ve seen in my 40+ years as a fan.

You said you wouldn’t replace him with a “Bobby Valentine type” of manager and you replaced him with the actual Bobby Valentine. And of course, this wasn’t even the guy GM Ben Cherington wanted. So much for his credibility right out of the box.

You fired Francona, kept his coaches and wouldn’t let Valentine bring in his own staff. Instead, you let him bring in just a couple of guys so now we have two defacto pitching coaches and they don’t even speak to each other.

Last Spring, when Francona’s contract was not extended you made him a lame duck manager. Maybe that was intended to be a boot in the ass for Tito. If it was, he didn’t get the message.

Terry Francona made one big mistake, he trusted his guys. He had their backs time and time again, keeping the media at bay, keeping clubhouse issues in the clubhouse and taking hit after hit when the players didn’t perform. Francona trusted his guys and they screwed him with his pants on. When things got bad at the end, they turned their backs on their manager and headed for the links.

Ownership/management faced with a grossly under performing team did what ownership/management has always done. You can’t fire 25 guys right? So you fire the manager.

In this case, I think it’s pretty clear they should have fired the 25 guys and stood behind their manager. If ownership/management had kept Terry and cleaned house of the problem children, I think we’d be in a very different place now.

In Boston, you don’t have to look too far to see how it ought to be done. If a player won’t get with the program in Foxboro, Belichick gets him out the door as fast as possible and Bob Kraft has his back 100%.

But not on Yawkey Way. Not only did they shove Francona out the door, they made sure to stab him in the back in typical Red Sox fashion. We’ve seen this behavior before and I blame Lucchino.

I actually blame Lucchino for a lot of what’s happened to this franchise. They’ve gone from that lovable bunch of idiots to just about the most unlikable bunch of overpaid, under performing, prima donnas I’ve ever seen. It’s not a ballpark it’s a Broadway production complete will a phony full house every night. It’s all so corporate, so marketing-driven, so pink-hatted.

And John Henry, I didn’t forget you – you get the largest share of the blame pie. You threw your confidence-challenged left fielder under the bus the first time you were asked about him. You don’t return Francona’s phone calls? Grow up. Do you honestly think Red Sox Nation gives a damn about your NASCAR team or Liverpool soccer?

We’re RED SOX FANS. All we care about is the Boston Red Sox.

All we want is a team that plays it’s hardest day in and day out. That plays like a team – and that means sitting on the bench during games not playing X-Box. We want players who want to play even when they’re banged up. We don’t expect to win the World Series every year, but we sure as hell expect our team to perform better than this sorry lot.

This franchise is completely screwed up and it’s your fault.

Anyone want to buy a brick?

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Tags: Baseball, Bobby Valentine, Boston, Boston Red Sox, Boston Sports, Fenway Park, John Henry, Red Sox, Terry Francona, Tito