Kevin Youkilis on media, drinking, conditioning, and the Red Sox collapse

October 03, 2011|By Steve Silva, Globe Staff

By Steve Silva, Globe Staff

Kevin Youkilis, a weekly guest on WAAF's Hill-Man show during the season, spoke on the radio program today about the disappointing end to the Red Sox season, shared his thoughts on reports that have surfaced recently about some players, and confirmed that he's having surgery to repair a sports hernia tomorrow.

"I'm still in shock," Youkilis said regarding the events that took place over the last five days. "I don't think it's really hit in a lot of ways, whether it's the bad September, Tito resigning, and it's been wild, and the one thing is is I think for a lot of us players, it won't hit us until we walk through those doors in Fort Myers and realize that Terry [Francona] is no longer with us and the crazy thing is is we're all going to be walking into a different environment anyway with the new spring training, so it's going to be a weird couple of months but I think hopefully this team will get the pieces together and be prepared for the 2012 season."

Youkilis was asked if had any awareness that Francona was feeling he was unable to get through to the team.

"Every year there's different players that come in, whether it be young guys or veterans, it's always different," Youkilis said. "I don't know. I think sometimes it was hard to tell. We started out 2-10, and then we had the most unbelievable months ever where we were just winning like it was the easiest game possible and then we had the month of September, so I think the biggest thing was is in all this is the fact that the thing that is upsetting is there's so much finger pointing at this person and that person and this and that but we're failing to realize that we're all at fault.

"Everyone needs to understand that every single person on that team. Everyone from the coaches to the general managers to the front office, whomever, we're all at fault. We always go with the philosophy that we win as a team and we lose as a team. And we all lost. To sit around and blame this person and that person and try to figure out the answers, it will take... you're just going to... too much blame will go around. We all need to be accountable and we all were at fault."

Youkilis was asked about a published report that singled him out as a potential problem in the clubhouse.