Red Sox owners John Henry and Tom Werner wanted “sexy” players to boost the team’s waning television ratings after its disappointing third-place finish in 2010, according to former manager Terry Francona, a desire that led to the acquisition of new stars, huge contracts, and ultimately the historic collapse of September 2011.
The ownership group commissioned a $100,000 study by an outside consultant to determine how to make the team more marketable. The result: Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford, both of whom proved to be busts in Boston.
Comments
Yes, we've been waiting for this book!
Shank really should rename this book, Francona and Epstein Cover Their Arses Theo Epstein lusted after Adrian Gonzalez for years. 'Cause he was sexy??? Theo Epstein and no one else negotiated one of the worst contracts in the history of MLB? 'Cause he was sexy?? Chicken and beer DURING games and a collapse of historic porportion. Yup, it was all ownerships fault. What crap!!
Theo Epstein was over rated.
This sounds more like Dan Shaughnessy's book than Terry Francona's.
Dear Mr. Werner,
Please explain how your team goes about "winning games in a more exciting fashion." We anxiously await your reply.
Former Fan
If it's really true that player acquisitions were based on a marketing consultant's recommendations, it's no wonder the Sox got so messed up.
Blaming it on the owners? I think that Francona only stated the long familiar reality of sports franchise owners, that the teams they own are their toys/hobbies, period. They've made their livings outside of the sport and they use their "spare cash" to buy teams, etc. Hell that has been the reality since the beginning of the game when Albert G. Sapulding realized that he could use his Cinncinnati Red Stockings to help market his sporting goods business.
I'll give Henry/Werner/et.al. credit for debunking the myth of the supposed curse, which was actually a curse of Tom Yawkey as owner. It was Yawkey who kept the Red Sox mediocre for years, not Babe Ruth (one of the most lame excuses in history).
As far as Theo Epstein goes, I maintained that he wasn't a boy wonder, 2004 team was mostly the creation of Dan Dukakis and that world series ring should have been given to him. Well now with the Cubs Theo has a real test of his abilities, let's see how this plays out.
Terry Francona is a dope and anybody that buy's this piece of crap is a fool. Every owner is concerned about the same things, these three Red Sox owners are no different than the rest. I truely believe that ANYBODY could have managed those Sox teams in 2004 and 2007 and had the same results. It was the players that played and ran the team and that is the reason Francona and the Sox sunk after awhile. The group of solid core players were either gone or going and Francona had nobody to cover his backside. Did you ever listen to Francona either in a interview or on ESPN and hear how stupid and inarticulate he is? The owners have the money, they got the money most of us have because they are able to make solid business decisions without emotion.
Is this Larry Lucchino?
Larry? Larry?
I wonder which media-flack genius came up with the Sweet Caroline BS.
"Feeding the monster."
I give Tom Werner credit for the success he's had producing popular tv shows but he's clueless when it comes to sports programming. What runs on NESN is embarassing. He doesn't understand that, in this market, a market that loves baseball, if you field a competitive team that plays the game with passion people will watch the games.
Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy are great at what they do but the constant plugging of terrible NESN shows and sponsors makes even watching/listening to them unbearable. I appreciate what this ownership brought to Boston and the fact that they've fielded two teams that won World Series. That said, they've overmarketed this team and have turned it into a joke. They need to back off and let baseball operations do their jobs putting together a team that will compete.
I guess it’s really true. “You don’t have to explain to your friends and your enemies wouldn’t believe you anyhow”.
Once again shaugnessy figures out a way to make money off others' work. Is shaugnessy a reporter/journalist who expect to report to us what is going on? Or is he a shill keeping things to himself because he has a contract to write a bestselling book down the road? At the very least should he have been writing about the red sox all these many months whiule he was under contract to keep those facts out of his (so-called) column and then put out a book down the road containing significant info. This not meant to demean what Francona has to say in the book, which seems to me to be very interesting and not surprising; rather simply to comment on shaugnessy and his duplicity and dishonesty as a writer about the red sox