I Still Have No Idea

I don’t really know what to think. I certainly don’t know what to say. Terry Francona’s departure from the team offers up many more questions than it does answers.
First, the easy stuff. He was by far the best Red Sox manager in my lifetime. Unfortunately for Francona, that’s not exactly saying much. But, I imagine that would be the case even if the Red Sox had some managers over the last few years that were qualified to manage a Little League team. I can’t remember ever agreeing with a manager half as often as I did Francona. In those times we did agree, I often saw his point after his explanation. Very rarely did I see a move happen, think it was stupid, hear his reasoning, and still think it was stupid. That’s pretty amazing. I also know that his weekly interview with the EEIdiots was the only reason to listen to sports talk radio. It should be required of every manager from here on out.

As for why he left, or what this means for the Sox, I haven’t a clue. Part of me thinks this will be similar to the steroid scandal. Once we found out that so many players were using PEDs, you start to realize all the clues you should have picked up on at the time. I can imagine the same thing happening in this case. We’ll look back and see things that should have been huge red flags, but that were ignored. I know that the last interview with the EEIdiots I heard last week was different. He was obviously annoyed. He was frustrated. The whole tone was different. He wasn’t playful like he usually was. At the time, I chalked it up to the understanding annoyance at the EEIdiots for asking him the same questions over and over. Maybe there was more. Apparently there was more.

This sure looks like this was Terry’s call. It may have been the same decision the Red Sox front office would have made. But, it looks to have been at least mutual. I still can’t decide if that’s good or bad. If there were things that were driving Francona out of Boston, why weren’t they addressed? Why did he have to worry about getting through to his players all of a sudden? Why did all these champions suddenly need a manager’s motivation more than ever? I don’t know.

From here, I have to hope that Theo knows what he’s looking for in a manager. He certainly hit it right the last time he tried.

He has a wonderful blueprint to work from.