Schilling was quick to come to Francona's defense.
"The GM is more involved, but it works. We won a World Series," Schilling said. Francona responded from his home in the Philadelphia area last night.
"I'm a little bit surprised [Martinez] said it," Francona said. "I don't think he would have said it had we given him that fourth year."
Francona said he worked very hard to accommodate Martinez's wishes for workouts and going home to the Dominican at the All-Star break. Francona did all he could to make sure he could work with Martinez.
"I worked my [butt] off to make it work," the manager said. "I worked my [butt] off with every player, Pedro included. He talks about respect and that respect is a two-way street with front office, ownership."
Francona caught himself at that point and said, "I don't want to do what he's doing. I chose to deal with Pedro. Nobody had a gun to my head. I did what I thought was right. I chose to deal with things."
Francona said he knew all about Martinez's workout schedule being different than the rest of the team's when he took the job and knew he had to make it work.
"I thought I did my background checking. I thought so. When he was going to leave at the All-Star break, I spoke to the team about it and made sure nobody had a problem with it," Francona said.
Rehabilitating his surgically repaired right ankle at his home in Arizona, Schilling denied he ever said Martinez received "preferential treatment," as had been reported. But he was strong in his conviction that Martinez marched to his own drummer: "He did what he wanted, when he wanted." Schilling also cringed at Martinez staying in Boston for Game 6 of the American League Championship Series in New York, wondering aloud why he wasn't around for such a huge game.
Schilling said Martinez "was scheduled to work out of the bullpen" in Game 7.
