New Brighton native good choice for Series
player with the Montreal Expos in 1981 at Three Rivers Stadium, riding to the park with his parents, former longtime big-leaguer Tito and Roberta, and his sister, Amy. I remember talking to all the important New Brighton people in his life, from eighth-grade basketball coach John Wooley to golf coach Drew Szabo to baseball coach Greg Fazio to American Legion coach Angelo Ganz and saw what they meant to him. I have followed his career closely since then. I am watching a Hall of Famer.
Francona’s work with the Boston Red Sox alone should get him enshrined. They should build a statue of him outside Fenway Park because of the way he worked successfully with big-ego players such as Pedro Martinez, Manny Ramirez and Jonathan Papelbon in a pressure-packed media market. In 2004, Francona led the Red Sox back from a 3-0 deficit against the New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series before they went on to sweep the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series, giving Boston its first Series title since Babe Ruth was in their rotation 86 years earlier. In 2007, the Red Sox won a second World Series with Francona, climbing out of a 3-1 hole against Cleveland in the ALCS before sweeping Colorado. You are reading correctly. Francona is 8-0 in World Series games.
Now, Francona has a chance to lead Cleveland to a World Series title for the first time since 1948. It will be an amazing night on the Lakefront tonight with Game 1 of the Series at Progressive Field and the Cavaliers celebrating their 2016 NBA championship next door at Quicken Loans Arena. If the Indians win, you’ll have to call Cleveland the City of Champions, right? You’ll hate that. The Indians are underdogs against the powerful Cubs, who won 103 games this season. But the Indians were underdogs against Boston and Toronto in the first two rounds of the postseason and won seven of eight games. They did so without top starting pitchers Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar and a third, Trevor Bauer, because Francona did a masterful job with his bullpen. They held the Red Sox and Blue Jays to 15 runs in the eight games.
“Tito is such a people person,” Indians first baseman Mike Napoli told ESPN, using Francona’s nickname. “He understands situations, he understands the hype, he knows how to calm you. He’s been there before. He’s been through it as a player. He’s been through it in Boston. Anything he says, it opens your eyes. It means something because he’s so genuine as a person.”
Jim Leyland is the best manager I’ve known because of his incredible people skills.
I put Francona right there.
I love the story of Francona’s big break as a manager. It involved, at least in part, a game of Yahtzee. That’s right, Yahtzee.
It goes back to 1994 when Francona was manager of Class AA Birmingham and had a long-shot prospect by the name of Jordan on the team. Michael Jordan had decided to try baseball after a rather successful career in the NBA. The time he and Francona spent together gave Francona the most exposure of any Class AA manager in history. It’s not every minor league bus that has a “Hard Copy” helicopter following it down the interstate.
“For the first time in his life, he could just be himself,” Francona said of Jordan. “No one was tugging on him. I think he liked that. We had a keg of beer and a Ping-Pong table in our clubhouse. He thought it was a boys’ club. We’d sit there until 2 in the morning, talking baseball, playing Ping-Pong, playing Yahtzee … “I told you. “We taught him how to play,” Francona said. “We were in Zebulon and it was his first trip back to North Carolina as a baseball player. It was a real big deal, and about 500 media people were waiting for him after the game. On his way out, he saw the coaches and me playing. He said he wouldn’t go out and meet the media until we taught him the game. So I had to go out and tell the writers, ‘Michael had a bad day today. He’s with the hitting coach right now. It’ll be a little while before he comes out.’ ”
The whole time Jordan was playing Yahtzee.
“He finally figured it out — about $500 later,” Francona said.
Jordan gave Francona a strong recommendation to Philadelphia Phillies president Bill Giles, who hired Francona as his manager before the 1997 season. That job didn’t work out, but Francona has been winning since. He has a chance to become just the 11th manager in baseball history to win three World Series.
I’m not going to apologize for being provincial in this case.
I would love to see him do it.