Dick Williams, the man maybe most responsible for starting the jalopy, later to be known as "Red Sox Nation," Terry Francona is not.
Williams had an open door policy when he took over in 1967. When the door was open, don't come in.
Forty years later, Terry Francona, an anti-Williams if ever there was one, put the finishing touches on the ride initiated by the Impossible Dream Team.
Man, it looks good.
Four seasons and two championships after he was named the manager of the Boston Red Sox, credit is flying around like the leaves in November.
The pitching. The bullpen. The veterans. The kids. The experience. Josh Beckett. David Ortiz. And the ownership.
All are worthy. Take one away, and guess what? The Red Sox annual golf season would be a month old.
But maybe it's time to go where Red Sox fans rarely turn when doling out the accolades | the manager.
Francona did it. He pulled it off. He embraced his players, normally a no-no around here, and they responded.
He was asked at his first press conference if he could handle the scrutiny from fans and especially the media.
"I've been released from six teams. I've been fired as a manager. I've got no hair. I've got a nose that's three sizes too big for my face, and I grew up in a major league clubhouse," said Francona. "My skin's pretty thick. I'll be OK."
Ya, right. Or so we thought.
He jumped into the fire, just two months removed from Grady Little and Game 7 in Yankee Stadium. So close, but yet so far.
Francona joined the Red Sox almost at the same time Curt Schilling did. Both men, who had been together in Philadelphia, said their deals were mutually exclusive though no one believed them.
While Francona arrived with a good sense of humor, his resume was ordinary. In four years leading the Phillies, they lost more games than they won every year (68-94 in '97; 75-87 in '98; 77-85 in '99; and 65-97 in '00).
His teams weren't very good. But Theo Epstein, on the job only a little more than a year, liked what he heard.
He also had seen another New England coach, Bill Belichick, learn a lot from his mistakes in Cleveland, nearly a decade before he got his second chance.
"Terry is a very likeable guy," said Epstein. "Plus he had been in the game a long time both as the son of a player and then a player himself. I just felt with our current club, he fits in very well right away."
Epstein couldn't have been more correct.
The only reason Little was fired after the 2003 season was his "gaffe" in Yankee Stadium. Before the Game 7 "blunder," owner John Henry was seen hugging Little on the field.
The franchise wanted a "players' manager" like Little, whom the players really liked. Upon being hired, Francona did not totally embrace his status as a "players' manager."
"The players will know that I care about them more than anybody ever cared about them before. And they will know that I respect them, hopefully more than anybody's ever respected them before," Francona said at his initial press conference. "But I will also ask more of them than anybody's ever asked of them before."
In 2004, his Red Sox defeated the Angels, Yankees and Cardinals in succession. Two of those teams were managed by future Hall of Famers Joe Torre and Tony La Russa. The other, the Angels, was managed by a guy who won the 2002 World Series.
It was probably the first time people recognized his skills as a manager on the field and in the clubhouse.
It was an odd bunch he inherited from Grady Little. From Johnny Damon, who had become a caricature of himself (he thought he was a rock star), to a sometimes "Manic" Manny Ramirez, to Pedro Martinez, who was no longer great, but still very good.
He also got caught in the middle of the Nomar Garciaparra|Larry Lucchino war, which eventually led to Garciaparra's ticket out of Boston by the trading deadline.
Anyway, he had a lot on his plate and he not only survived, he thrived. The Red Sox trailed the Yankees 3-0 and they were dead. Or so we thought.
The next two years were similarly up and down. The Sox made the playoffs in 2005, but they had no pitching and were swept by the eventual World Series champs, the Chicago White Sox, 3-0.
In 2006, the Red Sox, again with shaky starting pitching, appeared to be doing it with smoke and mirrors. Josh Beckett and Curt Schilling won 16 and 15 games respectively, but after that nobody had more than seven.
Everything, especially the pitching, fell apart the last week of July when Jason Varitek got hurt. A 3<1/2>-game lead in late July had turned into a 6<1/2>-game deficit by late August. By Sept. 10, the Sox were a joke and 10 games out of first and out of the Wild Card hunt.
Francona survived, but the pressure was obviously on in 2007. Managing on a contract, one of the lowest for mid-tier and big market teams, with two years left (the Sox extended his first deal for four years), this was going to be his proving ground.
Well, he couldn't have picked a better year to pull a Bill Belichick.
Francona coasted through most of 2007 with little mention, the ultimate compliment from Red Sox fans. Beckett was becoming a superstar and the rest of his staff was as solid as any in baseball.
But there were a few players who struggled for large chunks of the 2007 season, including free agent acquisitions Julio Lugo and J.D. Drew. His center fielder Coco Crisp wasn't much better.
In fact, maybe the best move Francona made this season was not sending down Dustin Pedroia, whose batting average was .180 on May 3.
"That meant a lot to me," said Pedroia last week. "Terry was great. He told me a few times that I was his second baseman. He said he knew I was going to start hitting. That confidence is important for a young player like me."
The same with Lugo, Crisp and especially Drew. Fans and media were calling for the benching of all three. But the cooler head prevailed.
"I don't know if fans realize what that means | to have your manager believe in you," said Sox reliever Eric Gagne, who himself had a disappointing three-month stint with the Red Sox, including the playoffs. "Tito played the game. That means something. He knows what it is like to struggle. Look at the guys who came through in the playoffs. A few of them were guys Terry stuck with."
That's right, Francona's best work was in the playoffs. He didn't panic in Cleveland when the Sox were down 2-1 and people were asking for Beckett to pitch Game 4. He showed the moxie some worried he didn't have by pulling three consecutive starters, including his friend Schilling, before the end of the fifth inning.
He got the most out of a bullpen that had some shaky times in September, relying heavily in the big games on Hideki Okajima and Jonathan Papelbon. While Okajima struggled in his last two outings, he asked Papelbon to come into the eighth inning on three consecutive games and each time he mowed down the Rockies.
In the end, he had thick skin. He survived the negativity. And his team came through for him.
"I don't remember everything I said (at my first press conference)," said Francona. "I'm sure whatever I said I believed. That's the reason you say it. But until you live through things, you really don't quite know. I mean, you try to prepare yourself for whatever can happen, but I think as you go through experiences you try to grow and get better, just like everybody. And the more experiences you come through, I think it helps with your confidence because you learn to deal with them."
Williams, who watched the Red Sox closely from his Florida condominium, was impressed with the manager who finally got Boston what it richly deserved | two World Series titles.
"Francona was outstanding," said the 78-year-old Williams. "He certainly doesn't overmanage. His players go out and play the game the way it's supposed to be played. You can see that he is well thought of by his players. I'm a big fan of his. I think you look at a guy like Manny Ramirez and the way Francona got a lot out of him. I'm very happy for the manager there. He's a really good one."
