Houghton Mifflin
February 2013
On Sale: January 22, 2013
368 pages ISBN: 0547928173 EAN: 9780547928173 Kindle: B008LQ20YY Hardcover / e-Book Add to Wish List
From 2004 to 2011, Terry Francona managed the Boston Red
Sox, perhaps the most scrutinized team in all of sports.
During that time, every home game was a sellout. Every play,
call, word, gesture—on the field and off—was analyzed by
thousands. And every decision was either genius, or
disastrous. In those eight years, the Red Sox were
transformed from a cursed franchise to one of the most
successful and profitable in baseball history—only to fall
back to last place as soon as Francona was gone. Now, in
Francona: The Red Sox Years, the decorated manager
opens up for the first time about his tenure in Boston,
unspooling the narrative of how this world-class
organization reached such incredible highs and dipped to
equally incredible lows. But through it all, there was
always baseball, that beautiful game of which Francona never
lost sight.
As no book has ever quite done before,
Francona escorts readers into the rarefied world of a
twenty-first-century clubhouse, revealing the mercurial
dynamic of the national pastime from the inside out. From
his unique vantage point, Francona chronicles an epic era,
from 2004, his first year as the Sox skipper, when they won
their first championship in 86 years, through another win in
2007, to the controversial September collapse just four
years later. He recounts the tightrope walk of managing
unpredictable personalities such as Pedro Martinez and Manny
Ramirez and working with Theo Epstein, the general managing
phenom, and his statistics-driven executives. It was a job
that meant balancing their voluminous data with the emotions
of a 25-man roster. It was a job that also meant trying to
meet the expectations of three owners with often wildly
differing opinions. Along the way, readers are treated to
never-before-told stories about their favorite players,
moments, losses, and wins.
Ultimately, when for the
Red Sox it became less about winning and more about making
money, Francona contends they lost their way. But it was an
unforgettable, endlessly entertaining, and instructive time
in baseball history, one that is documented and celebrated
in Francona, a book that examines like no other the
art of managing in today’s game.
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