The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Determined Francona overcoming medical issues
Terry Francona has gone through so many issues medically over the last seven months that had he chosen to retire from the rigors of baseball, no one would have questioned him.
That isn’t how the Indians’ manager rolls.
Nor does Francona, 61, feel sorry for himself. He is in Goodyear, Ariz., for his ninth spring training as Indians manager, slimmer than when last seen in Cleveland and wearing a walking boot on his left foot.
With 673 career wins, Francona will pass Lou Boudreau (728) to become the Indians alltime winningest manager sometime this summer.
Francona was in the dugout for only 14 of the 60 games the Tribe played in 2020. He underwent surgery for a gastrointestinal disorder in early August. That led to blood clots and other issues. He spent four days in the intensive care unit of Cleveland Clinic and underwent more surgeries.
Francona returned to his home in Arizona to rest and recuperate as soon as the Indians were eliminated by the Yankees in the playoffs. His medical issues were far from over.
The first question he was asked Feb. 19 on a Zoom call from Goodyear was about his health. He revealed he was back in the hospital in Cleveland for 10 days in January because of a staph infection.
“All the stuff from last year is really good,” Francona said. “I worked really hard and the doctors have taken care of everything. So that part’s good.
“About the middle of November, I was treated for gout, which I never had before. They kept telling me, ‘Be patient. Take the medicine.’
In the middle of January, I was tired of being patient, so I flew back to Cleveland and saw the doctors at Cleveland Clinic. I had a staph infection in my left foot on the big toe. They had to cut out part of the bone and put some cement in there. I have a picc line in my arm for antibiotics three times a day.”
Francona is hobbling along on crutches. He joked about not being mobile before and being even less mobile now. He said pitching coach Carl Willis will walk to the mound to make ingame pitching changes for the foreseeable future.
“After three weeks, I’ll be done with the antibiotics,” Francona said. “I’ll start getting off the crutches a little bit and then they’ll see if the staph has gone away completely.”
Francona said he lost 20 pounds but then “put a couple back on because I’ve just been laying around.” He said he had to “give myself a little kick in the pants” to keep his rehab going and maintain that hunger to manage again.
“I always come back to, I have some people that are pretty close to me, even some guys in baseball who are going through some things that are really serious,” Francona said. “This is more of a pain in the neck, and I have to realize that. When I shower I have to put a big bag over my (left) leg. I have to cover this (right) arm. It’s aggravating. That’s all it is. It’s aggravating. I have to remind myself of that sometimes.”
Spring training provides Francona the wonder tonic not available to doctors.
“Part of the fun of showing up to spring training is everybody’s healthy,” Francona said. “You don’t know (what’s going to happen). Everybody’s record is 0-0. We’re going to work to see how good we can get. That’s part of the fun of our job. We love that. It gets your juices going for sure.”
The Indians made the playoffs five of eight years under Francona’s leadership, including 2020 when Sandy Alomar Jr. managed most of the season.