Francona’s heart is in the clubhouse
Cleveland manager not ready to leave game that he loves despite a health scare
Terry Francona’s legs rocked back and forth. He reached for a pencil on his desk, and started softly jabbing his right leg, over and over, as if a little pain will make the twitch stop.
Francona, his eyes darting back and forth, looked at his laptop one moment, the TV above on the wall the next, while greeting the players strolling by his office. His desk had three pieces of bubble gum front of him, a pouch of Lancaster chewing tobacco and a pack of playing cards on one side, and a fresh cup of coffee with an incomplete crossword puzzle on the other side. This is Francona’s refuge. The baseball clubhouse. He arrived at 11:15 in the morning, eight hours before the first pitch of the Cleveland Indians’ game against San Francisco earlier this week. He swam for an hour. Talked candidly for 30 minutes to Giants manager Bruce Bochy about heart problems. Played cribbage with pitchers Josh Tomlin and Bryan Shaw. Chatted with Giants broadcaster Duane Kuiper, the former Cleveland infielder. Had meetings about potential trade acquisitions with Cleveland GM Chris Antonetti. And kept dropping in and out of the coaches’ room next door.
“This is where I belong,” said Francona, in his fifth year of managing the Cleveland Indians, after winning two World Series titles with the Boston Red Sox. “The clubhouse. This is all I know. Really, this is all I’ve ever done since I was 3.”
Francona’s father Tito played 15 years in the major leagues. He played 11 years himself, has managed 20 years, and handled clubhouses with personalities ranging from David Ortiz to Michael Jordan to Curt Schilling. Baseball, except for a few months of real estate training when he quit halfway through the class, is really all he knows.
“That’s why it almost killed me,” Francona said, “when it was taken away. This game means everything to me.”
It’s why Friday’s game against the Toronto Blue Jays just could be the most emotional game in Cleveland since Game 7 of last year’s World Series. Francona, 58, will be managing his first game in Cleveland at Progressive Field in 18 days.
He was last seen in Cleveland leaving the dugout in the fifth inning July 4 against the San Diego Padres. His heart was pounding at the rate of 200 beats a minute, and he was so lightheaded, he thought he was going to pass out.
He was rushed to the Cleveland Clinic for tests, and was hospitalized for three days until doctors diagnosed the problem that caused him to leave the dugout with chest pains four times since last August.
He was diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat, and underwent a 10-hour surgery on July 7 to have a catheter ablation procedure.
“We were all so scared,” Cleveland catcher Yan Gomes said. “It’s like he just tripped and hurt himself. I’m no doctor, but when you talk about heart, you never know what may happen.
“You start realizing that there’s more to life than just this game, especially when you see one of the leaders of this organization gone from us. It’s so great to have him back.
“We want to make it easy on him, so he doesn’t have another heart attack.”
Francona, as is his custom, has leaned on self-deprecation to ease his players’ minds. Even when he was first admitted to the hospital, and saw how young his doctor looked, Francona quizzed him before he could even bring out the stethoscope.
“Hey,” Francona asked, “you did graduate from medical school, right?”
“It was a relief once they found out what it was, but I was mad that I wasn’t around,” he said. “I hate missing games. They’re almost sacred.
“Even once they found out what it was, I was like, ‘Let’s do it and get it over with. I’m not sitting around here. So you’re either doing it tomorrow or I’m going back to work.’ ”
The heart, Francona said, could wait.
The Indians have another pennant to win, and Francona wasn’t about to walk out on his team.
“People always talk about me retiring,” he said, “but I’m not in any rush to retire, because I love what I’m doing. Some day if I can’t do this job
“We need him more than he needs us. It’s up to us to keep him healthy.” JOSH TOMLIN INDIANS PITCHER
correctly, whether it’s health or whatever, I could stay in the game and help younger kids or something. But I’m not there yet.
“I still have that fire. Even though the game can keep you up at night and talking to yourself, I love it so much. It wears you out because you care so much, but to do this right, you’ve got to care. As you get older, you know how to manage your time better, but I don’t think you ever learn how to deal with losses better.
“When you’re not winning, it just beats you up.”
There are 29 other managers in the game who can relate, particularly Bochy, who has had a few health scares himself, including a heart attack, and three months ago underwent the same procedure as Francona.
“I think we all realize what we go through,” Bochy said, “and I talked to another manager who went through the same thing. The way we take some of these tough losses, it goes with the territory. There for a while, I was having an incident almost every day.”
Francona, who remained in Cleveland while bench coach Brad Mills and his staff managed the American League in the all-star game, says he actually felt strong enough to attend the game. He was already out of the hospital, and even poked his head into the Indians’ clubhouse the last day before the all-star break, joking to his players that, sorry, they couldn’t kill him off that easily.
“I didn’t go to the all-star Game,” Francona said, “because I thought it sent the wrong message. Here I am missing games from the Indians, and then I’m going to trot myself down there to Miami? That’s not right.”
Francona, whose father also has endured heart problems, has agreed to make concessions. He stays away off the field during batting practice, instead watching from the dugout. He watches what he eats. He swims. He is even going to start trying an apparatus for sleep apnea.
“But it doesn’t mean I still can’t get mad and frustrated,” he said. “I can’t imagine doing anything different.”
The Indians’ players say they want to ease Francona’s stress level by opening a nice lead in the second half, but it’s been everything but calming. They lead the Minnesota Twins by just one-half game, and have shown an inability to break from the pack all season.
“This team is too good, with too many players in this clubhouse with post-season experience,” Indians closer Cody Allen says, “to be playing like this. It stinks. We’re supposed to make it easier on Tito, not harder.”
“You’ve seen the difference he’s made to this organization since he got here,” Tomlin said. “So when you think about it, we need him more than he needs us.
“It’s up to us to keep him healthy.”