Skipper sailing after rough patch

Francona shows steady hand at wheel

May 30, 2004|Globe Staff

Nothing against "Gilligan's Island," but Terry Francona's wife, Jacque, figured he could find something better to do after his playing career than track the survivors of the SS Minnow. Rousing Francona from the couch, Jacque persuaded him to enroll in a real estate course, which he tolerated only until she called him one day in class to say an old friend, Buddy Bell, was looking for him. In a move that launched Francona's journey to the corner office of the Red Sox clubhouse, Bell, who was director of minor league scouting for the White Sox, asked Francona in 1991 to join the Chicago organization as a minor league coach. At that, Francona bolted to the front of the real estate class.

"I'm not coming back," he told the instructor. "No one's going to buy a house from me anyway."

So it was that Francona found himself 13 years later guiding the injury-depleted Red Sox to their worst May start since "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" hit the charts in 1976. The Sox dropped their fifth straight game May 4, lost sole possession of first place in the American League East, and threatened to make Francona nostalgic for an evening with Ginger and the Professor.

But rather than reach for the remote, the 44th manager in Sox history gathered the team in the visitors' clubhouse in Cleveland. The session lasted less than a minute, and Francona never uttered a word in anger.

"He said, `Guys, I just want to let you know that you're good. I love every one of you guys. You're going to be fine, trust me. That's it,' " Kevin Millar recalled.

The Sox won their next four games and 15 of their next 23 to reach today -- the 100th day of Francona's tenure since spring training began -- better positioned to help him become the first manager to win a World Series for the franchise since Ed Barrow in 1918.

"When you have a manager who's on your side, boy, it makes it a lot better," Millar said. "You feel the difference. We loved Grady Little last year, and there isn't a better guy to come in here and fill those shoes than Terry Francona. He's been unbelievable."

Francona's meeting in Cleveland ranks among a number of significant moments in his first 100 days, a span in which he has gone from greeting his new team on the first official morning of spring training to asserting himself as a manager who respects and protects his players as fiercely as he demands they play the game correctly.

Along the way, Francona has made some mistakes. He has proven adept at dealing with the "carnivorous" media, as former manager Johnny Pesky half-jokingly calls the daily horde of reporters. Francona has dedicated himself to the kind of computer-driven preparation Little never fully embraced. And he has kept the Sox winning despite one crippling injury after another.