IT’S A MADD MADD WORLD...

Larry Lucchino, the hard-driving, uncompromising former CEO of the Red Sox and

George Steinbrenner’s most famous antagonist, died last week at age 78 after a long, recurring battle with leukemia. Let it be said the Red Sox would not have won those world championships, Fenway Park might have fallen victim to the wrecking ball, and Camden Yards in Baltimore would not have started the ballpark renaissance in baseball were it not for Lucchino. It was Lucchino who hired Theo Epstein, who ended the Curse of the Bambino in Boston, and Lucchino, who fostered a relationship with Boston mayor Thomas Menino that led to the Red Sox being able to secure the necessary funding for the renovations to fast-decaying Fenway, including the seats above the Green Monster in left field that really should be named after him. It was also Lucchino — who never met a fellow baseball lord he couldn’t engage in mortal combat with — who breathed new life into the age-old Yankee-Red Sox rivalry by dubbing the Yankees “the evil empire” after Steinbrenner had out-maneuvered he and Epstein to sign Cuban defector Jose Contreras in 2002 a week after they’d also signed Hideki Matsui. In 2002, Red Sox owner John Henry told Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy that it was Lucchino who brought him in as the primary investor to the group that bought the Red Sox in 2002. Sadly, Lucchino had a falling out with Henry and Sox chairman Tom Werner, who blamed him for the disastrous hiring of Bobby Valentine as manager in 2011 and the loss of Jon Lester in 2014. Werner was said to have long been jealous of Lucchino getting all the credit for the Red Sox successes, and with Henry’s blessing was able to push Lucchino out. In his last years, Lucchino owned and operated the Red Sox Triple-A farm club in Worcester but friends said he died a bitter man after the way things ended for him in Boston. I would add it’s no coincidence the Red Sox ownership/front office has been a dysfunctional mess and the team has gone backward since his departure.