Released on Jan. 22 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, this 368-page book details Francona’s historic eight-year run as manager of the Boston Red Sox. During that time, Francona led the Sox to their first World Series title in 86 years and followed that with another World Series title three years later. In the end, it still wasn’t enough to save Francona’s job.
This book, which was No. 3 on Publishers Weekly’s nonfiction best-sellers list last Thursday, gives readers an inside view of the Red Sox, which is arguably one of the most scrutinized teams in professional sports. Between its covers, Francona describes the difficulties of having to manage superstars like Pedro Martinez and Manny Ramirez, all the while having to put out hundreds of “brush fires” during his time at the helm of the Sox. He also goes into great detail about his encounters with front office personnel and the team’s ownership, whose profit-mindedness often conflicted with what needed to happen on the playing field.
The book also goes into detail about the work of Theo Epstein, the Red Sox’s Yale-educated general manager during Francona’s time with the Sox. A former sports editor of The Yale Daily News, Epstein is given heavy credit for bringing Boston its first World Series title in 86 years through the application of sabremetrics and other advanced scouting methods. Like Francona, he’s also no longer employed by the Sox. Epstein is the current President of Baseball Operations for the Chicago Cubs, and Francona is the current manager of the Cleveland Indians.
I especially enjoyed the portions of the book that discussed Francona’s relationship with horror writer Stephen King, who is one of the Red Sox’s wealthiest and most famous die-hard fans. In December 2004, just months after Boston’s first World Series title under Francona, King and coauthor Stewart O’Nan published a book about the Sox called “Faithful.” In this book (which I also highly recommend), King, who can often be seen in the crowd at Boston’s Fenway Park, called Francona “Frank Coma.” Francona didn’t think it was funny.
King has a summer home in Sarasota, Fla. not far from Fort Myers, Fla., where the Sox hold spring training during the preseason. In 2005, like a lot of Sox fans, King made his way down to watch spring training only to be met by Sox bullpen coach Bill Haselman, who told him to stay away from Francona.
In the end, I highly recommend this book to anyone in the reading audience that loves baseball and especially the Boston Red Sox. At less than 400 pages, it’s a quick read and will give you in-depth details about Boston’s two recent World Series runs. It can be purchased at all major bookstores and online through Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
No comments:
Post a Comment