SHORT STAY
Top manager hired to turn around Bosox fired after dismal year
The Boston Red Sox, fresh off a 69-93 season of injuries and upheaval, fired manager Bobby Valentine after one year at the helm of the American League club.
BOSTON— The Boston Red Sox fired manager Bobby Valentine on Thursday after one season in which he failed to bring order to a clubhouse that disintegrated during the 2011 pennant race.
Valentine finished with a record of 69-93 on a team that was beset by injuries before management gave up on this season and traded some of its best players — and biggest salaries. Without Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford and Josh Beckett, the Red Sox will save $250 million in future salaries and have a chance to rebuild over the winter.
But that will be too late for Valentine.
Abaseball savant who won the NL pennant with the New York Mets and won it all in Japan, Valentine was brought in after two-time World Series champion Terry Francona lost control of the clubhouse in 2011 during an unprecedented September collapse. But the players who had been coddled under Francona bristled under Valentine’s abrasive style and, more importantly, didn’t win for him, either.
Ayear after a 7-20 September cost the Red Sox a chance at the postseason, the club went 7-22 in September and October to put a punctuation mark on its worst season in almost 50 years. But unlike 2011, when the team took a nine-game lead into the final month, Boston was never competitive under Valentine.
What was supposed to be a season of celebration for Fenway’s 100th anniversary was instead the worst at the ballpark since 1965. And though injuries probably doomed the Red Sox anyway, Valentine’s clumsy handling of his players — and it may have just been that he was honest when no one expected it — forced him into frequent apologies that undermined his authority in the clubhouse. “We didn’t have it. That’s for sure,” Valentine said. “I feel bad that we didn’t have it.” The Red Sox had not had an extended string of failure since owner John Henry bought the team in 2002, winning two World Series and making a two more trips to the AL championship series since then. They were poised for another playoff run in 2011, with the AL’s best record on Sept.1 before an unprecedented September collapse left them out of the post-season. Terry Francona, who led the Red Sox to Series titles in 2004 and again in 2007, was let go after ad- mitting that he had lost his touch in the clubhouse. To replace him, the Red Sox picked Valentine, who took the New York Mets to the 2000 World Series and won a championship in Japan but hadn’t managed in the majors in 10 years. The move was seen as an intentional and abrupt change from Francona’s hands-off style, an attempt to change a culture that enabled pitchers to drink beer and eat fried chicken in the clubhouse during games on their off-nights. On that, Valentine delivered immediately: He banned beer from the clubhouse, and didn’t hesitate to criticize his own players publicly — something Francona took pains to avoid. Valentine spent seven seasons in Japan, winning the championship in 2005 with Chiba Lotte. He was in the states working as an analyst for ESPN when the Red Sox went looking for a manager to shake up their complacent clubhouse.