Of Tom Werner and John Henry’s Red Sox ownership tenure, manager Terry Francona writes, “it’s still more of a toy or a hobby for them. It’s not their blood.” And that’s not nearly as damning as hinting Tito needed to sex up a ballclub that won a pair of World Series under his leadership, as the the following excerpts from Francona’s Dan Shaughnessy-ghosted, ‘Francoa : The Red Sox Years’ imply. From the Boston Globe’s Peter Abraham :
“They told us we didn’t have any marketable players,” former general manager Theo Epstein is quoted as saying in the book. “We need some sexy guys. Talk about the tail wagging the dog. We’d become too big. It was the farthest thing removed from what we set out to be.
“[That] was evidence to me of the inherent tension between building a baseball operation the way I thought was best and the realities of being in a big market . . . which had gotten bigger than any of us could handle.”
The book describes Werner as complaining about slumping ratings for the team’s regional sports network, NESN, and asking Francona to win games “in a more exciting fashion.”