Agonized’ Terry Francona needs perspective

‘Agonized’ Terry Francona needs perspective

By Ron Borges
Thursday, June 30, 2011 - Updated 5 hours ago
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Terry Francona said Tuesday he “agonized” over whether to put a $160 million baseball player in right field and a $12 million-a-year one at first base last night. If he agonizes over that, what happens to the poor guy when he has to order lunch?

Normal folks “agonize” over whether to pay the mortgage or health insurance bill. They agonize over whether to fill up the gas tank or the refrigerator. They agonize over how to fund their children’s college education or take care of ailing parents.

But agonizing over whether Adrian Gonzalez can catch a fly ball without running into a wall or a teammate or whether David Ortiz [stats] can put his foot down on first base without snapping an ankle seems to be, well, a bit melodramatic, to be kind.



In Little League, right field is where you put the shakiest glove. Seldom is that deployment followed by the kid’s decapitation. Gonzalez had played right field only once in the majors until last night, so no one was expecting him to be Dewey Evans.

The only expectation was that somehow he could find his way to a fly ball as long as it’s not too close to Jacoby Ellsbury [stats] or the fences at Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park. Is that really such dangerous work?

Well, there were no problems last night in right field other than the Sox losing a 2-1 game to the Phillies.

As for Ortiz, one of the hottest batters in the Sox lineup had pinch hit only three times since the Red Sox [team stats] embarked on their nine-game trek through National League parks because American League teams are banned from using the designated hitter when they play in those parks. Why baseball has two sets of rules is a good debate, but not an issue here.

The only debate is do you really believe Gonzalez was in danger of risking life and limb in right field? Or that it was wise to remove from the lineup a batter, who upon leaving Fenway, was hitting .311 with 17 home runs, 20 doubles and 48 RBI?

The answer in both cases from this point of view was and is no. If Gonzalez is so fragile that a few nights in right field put him at risk, then they should swath the man in bubble wrap every time he walks to the plate because, gee, a guy can get hurt up there.

Just ask J.D. Drew [stats].

How anyone could advocate sitting down Ortiz when he’s hotter than the Mojave Desert is not even worth talking about because Francona didn’t advocate that, nor did he create this problem. Interleague play and two sets of rules for one game created the problem, but it reflects the overwrought seriousness with which baseball takes itself that this problem became an agonizing one for the Red Sox manager.

Agonizing? Hell, it wasn’t even worth wrestling over. Adrian Gonzalez can’t shag flies and hit on the same day without running the risk of hospitalization?

One understands why Francona would sit down with general manager Theo Epstein to discuss this first. If I were Tito, I’d go to upper management too, and ask, “What do you want to do?” Considering what John Henry is paying Gonzalez and Ortiz, that was a wise course, but did he really have to wait until Cliff Lee baffled the entire lineup and his team had lost five out of its last six games, including two to the improved, but not that improved, Pirates, to do it?

Unfortunately for the men in Francona’s position, this is what the manager’s job has become. It is no longer just a matter of putting the best players out on the field. It’s massaging the egos and fragile psyches of men who only a few years ago would have painted the outfield fence if it would have gotten them to the big leagues.

Before finally making the move, Francona mentioned that he kept wondering about the “what ifs,” as in “What if something ever went wrong . . . ”

If the folks who pay for all these players by buying tickets went through life agonizing over whether something might go wrong on the fire truck, police cruiser, steel girder, roof, coal mine, train, bus, plane, assembly line, oil rig and on and on, nothing would get done in America.

You think a cab driver says “Sorry, can’t drive a limo?” You think a plumber says “Can’t risk moving that board. That’s a carpenter’s job”?

It’s all well and good to take your job seriously, as Francona rightfully does. But if he was truly “agonizing” over something as simple as whether Gonzalez could survive a few nights in right field, how does Barack Obama even get out of bed in the morning?










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