Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Tale of two sporting cities as Liverpool, Boston Red Sox thrive under Henry
WHILE Anfield rocked and Liverpool blitzed Barcelona to reach the Champions League final, another sports team on the other side of the world stopped and watched.
The Boston Red Sox were in the middle of batting practice ahead of their game against the Baltimore Orioles. Bats and gloves went down. Their sister side were pulling off something spectacular and it had to be seen. After Divock Origi sent Liverpool to Madrid, manager Alex Cora told his players to take inspiration from what the Reds had just achieved.
The reigning World Series winners and the now kings of Europe, based 3,000 miles apart, have one key link. Barring the colour that gives the Boston side their name, that is.
It is owner John W. Henry and Fenway Sports Group.
But there is plenty shared between the two sides too. They are two historically successful teams who, until recently, struggled to match that past to present glories.
And their grounds are landmarks in their own rights. Fenway Park is one of baseball’s most famous stadiums.
Take the Green Monster, for example. It is a giant wall in left field that is unique to Fenway. “You guys have Big Ben,” Red Sox historian Gordon Edes said. “Paris has the Eiffel Tower. We have the Green Monster.”
It is comparable with the Kop at Anfield, a unique facet to a ground that defines a sports team.
Back to Henry himself. He had a mixed reception on arrival as owner of Liverpool – something that has dulled since they won their sixth Champions League. But he faced the same level of suspicion when he turned up at Fenway Park. The 69-year-old had owned the Florida Marlins, a jobbing Major League Baseball side, for three years before selling up. They were nothing compared to the Red Sox, one of baseball’s grandest names.
Not that everything was fine at Fenway. The “Curse of the Bambino” – the Red Sox sold Babe Ruth and failed to win the World Series for 86 years – hung over the place.
There were also plans for the demolition of the historic ground with the intention of building a new stadium next door. Instead, Henry put plans in place to renovate Fenway at the cost of around $300million – similar to how notions of leaving Anfield have been shelved under FSG.
Their Main Stand expansion went so well because Henry and Co have been there before. Henry knew the value of the Green Monster. Instead of knocking it down, he kept it, and, for the first time in its 90-year history, added seats on top. People pay hundreds of dollars for tickets there.
Moneyball was also the in-vogue topic at the time of his arrival. Henry was always obsessed with numbers, even before he made his money as a commodities trader.
Discussing a spell when he took over the family farm, his neighbour Rex Twist said: “Most farmers want to talk about their tractors. All John talked about was the market and prices.” So Henry went and recruited ‘sabermetrics’ pioneer Bill James to give his team a new approach to recruitment, based on the empirical analysis of baseball statistics.
That was copied on Merseyside when the initially maligned Michael Edwards was given a huge role in signings. His model did not work at first but has paid dividends in the last couple of years. Few would deny Liverpool’s recent market activity has been brilliant.
Just like Liverpool have with Virgil van Dijk and Alisson, the Red Sox have also spent heavily when necessary.
Henry walked into the Red Sox in 2002 and declared that his goal was “breaking the Curse of the Bambino”. He achieved it within just two years.
The Red Sox became the first team ever to come back from a 3-0 deficit to win as they overcame the New York Yankees – their opponents in the inaugural London Series today and tomorrow – in the American League Championship Series.
They then beat the St Louis Cardinals in the 2004 Series itself to capture the title for the first time since 1918.
Not that they stopped there. They took the World Series again in 2007, 2013 and 2018. There is an argument to be made that having come into the century as a cursed team, the Red Sox are now the baseball dynasty of the new millennium.
The connection in a sporting sense with Liverpool can be seen. They may have taken nearly a decade to win a major honour under their owners, yet the Champions League triumph feels like the start of something.
Even ahead of the final in Madrid, Henry made it clear he wanted more next season: “The Champions League final doesn’t make up for it but not winning the Premier League this year means it is an even larger goal next year.”
Courtesy of Henry, we are now talking about a tale of two sporting cities. Both Liverpool and the Red Sox are thriving under his stewardship.