John Farrell was eating Chinese food with Red Sox owner John Henry and president Larry Lucchino at their getting-to-know-you-again sitdown when Henry asked the obvious question of a man who’d already been and gone: “With all the issues, why would you want to come here?”

The Red Sox, after all, are emerging from the rubble of their worst season since 1965, when they lost 100 games. Bobby Valentine was dismissed after one season, the shortest tenure for a (non-interim) Boston manager in 78 years. The roster is punctuated by question marks. The fans, long past the euphoria of two World Series championships, are somewhere between apoplexy and apathy.