Well said! Couldn’t agree more, rare to actually love a manager but this guy had the it factor.
Sadly, I don't think his health will give him another opportunity.
+1. He won the first title in 86 years, won another title 3 years later, and 4 years after that (averaging 92 wins per year), we let him go. It feels impossible.
He is a slam-dunk HoF manager. His players' public push alone will be monstrous.
Seconded. He should have been the baseball Bill Belichick. I firmly believe that they would have won at least the four titles with him as manager.
This post from @ColdSoxPack in the MLB game thread had me laughing on my couch so hard last night my wife was asking if I was all right. I had ever heard this story before.
That is absolutely phenomenal.
I tried searching, but couldn't find the video referenced here. I NEED it.
You might be too young to remember this Top 2 moment: https://www.boston.com/sports/boston-red-sox/2021/02/12/carlton-fisk-fred-lynn-mailed-contracts-red-sox-1980/
Born in 84. So no recollection of this and fortunately none of 86 as I was only 2 years old. It just blows my mind that something like this could happen in a relatively modern age. Weren’t like faxes a thing in 1980? Sorry for the hijack.
Came here to say this. To me, the firing and slander put the ownership in a different light that I could never get over, even after subsequent titles. It was not defensible from a business, human, or on-field standpoint and they deserved much worse than the Bobby V year.
Co-signed
It's not nearly the same stakes, but Orsillo along with Tito are the two moves that seem unforgivable, for a franchise that seems to understand how their fans are truly wired some of the time, but oblivious to it others.
Best ever Red Sox manager no question IMO. Eddie Collins and Joe Cronin maybe second and third?
Define "people"
This is how I remember it as well. Everyone was furious with how the once-promising season had ended, blowing that huge lead, and the care-free attitude some of the players seemed to take, half-assing it daily. I remember SoSH being split on whether to fire Francona or not, lots of "well obviously someone has to be held accountable" and "he's clearly lost the locker room, and when that happens it doesn't matter how grateful you are for the past, you have to think about the future..." kind of stuff, amid all the other recognition that he'd always been a great manager.
Yes, absolutely.
Fans are pretty dumb and the board may have been roughly split at the time as we didn't know too many details, but when the Hohler hit piece came out accusing Tito of being on drugs based on anonymous sources...I think this is something we can have 20/20 hindsight on even if there weren't pitchforks immediately. Also, they went out and finished with 69 wins with most of the same players and a joke manager the next year, which showed that maybe it wasn't Francona's fault.
