MLB is not Bill’s game

Sox job bad fit for Pats coach

To nobody’s surprise, Chicago Cubs manager Joe Maddon and Cleveland Indians skipper Terry Francona received all A’s during this year’s World Series for their cooperation with the media — they were affable, accessible and anecdotal.

They spiced up otherwise mundane press briefings with one-liners, quips and old-timey stories, at times making themselves the butt of the joke. (To hear Francona tell it, you’d think he was the worst . . . player . . . ever.)

And that’s more or less the way it is these days in Major League Baseball. The season is tremendously long — more than eight months if you count spring training and a full playoff run — and the media availabilities take place both before and after games. And sometimes even during the game, if it’s on national television. Factor in social media and the 24/7 news cycle and most managers find it easier to just go along for the ride. Some even have a little fun with it. Gone are the days when the John McNamaras and Billy Martins of the world could growl their way through these little tea parties, though, in fairness, Billy occasionally offered up a good on-the-town story from his nights with Whitey and the Mick.

Which brings me to this point: How long do you think Patriots coach Bill Belichick would last if he were manager of the Red Sox? One season? A couple of months? My guess: He’d submit his resignation on the morning of the annual spring training doubleheader against Boston College and Northeastern.

This isn’t a knock on Belichick’s baseball acumen. He is, after all, a “genius.” Given a chance to manage in the big leagues, he’d read every book ever written on baseball. He’d watch every Sox game dating back to 1986. He’d spend a couple of weekends in Jupiter, Fla., with his good buddy Tony La Russa, and come out of the experience with all kinds of crazy shifts, newfangled batting orders and a “bullpen by committee” that actually works.

But have you been listening to Belichick’s various media sessions the past couple of days? He’s been playing dodge ball over his decision to banish linebacker Jamie Collins to the only professional sports franchise in Cleveland that never makes the playoffs. His answers have been predictably vague, but they highlight an important point: Bill runs the Patriots.

He not only shops for the groceries, he also manages the entire kitchen staff.

It doesn’t work that way with the Red Sox. The old bowling alley underneath Fenway Park is now a baseball ops think tank, where dozens of brilliant millennials work 18-hour days in pursuit of the perfect ballclub.

At the end of each day they send six cases of data down to the manager’s office, along with that night’s lineup card.

Imagine Bill Belichick, a 64-year-old Wesleyan grad, being told whom to bat third by a 24-year-old Wesleyan grad.

And then there’s ownership. The understanding is that Pats owner Robert Kraft has long since gotten out of the business of scouting players and building rosters, though I suspect he and son Jonathan have seats at the football ops table.

Things are different with the Red Sox. Owners John Henry and Tom Werner not only have seats at the table, they have an entire section of the table to spread out their scouting reports, marketing studies and TV ratings. It has long been alleged that Sox ownership has had a hand in bringing in certain big-ticket, marquee players to help jazz up the product, and, well, I ask you: Can you imagine Belichick being handed Pablo Sandoval?

For $95 million over five years. Guaranteed. For all the grief Henry and Werner take over this or that move — who’d you rather have as your Opening Day starter, David Price or Jon Lester? — the fact is that their ownership has produced three World Series winners since 2004. With that kind of track record, they’re not about to give up the shop to the baseball ops people and retire to some South Carolina plantation, the way Tom Yawkey did when he got up there in age.

Bill Belichick, baseball manager, would have to deal with players who pull themselves out of the lineup at 6 p.m.

He’d have to deal with closers who, when asked to enter the game in the eighth inning of a tie game, say, “I only pitch in save situations.”

Oh, and Bill Belichick would have to wear a uniform. And a little blue cap. I’ll let you mull that visual on your own time.