Saying that it's not easy being the manager of the Red Sox may be the understatement of the year. Yet Terry Francona manages to make it look easy.
That's why I was disappointed to see that he didn't place well in some apparently highly scientific rating of baseball managers, from yesterday's NYT. On the plus side, the piece used funny facial illustrations to illustrate the strategems of various managers.
Allow me to quote from Chad Finn's Tito evaluation in the Maple Street Press Red Sox 2008 Annual, which I think is quite a bit closer to the mark:
He's just the second manager in franchise history to win two championships. He's 22-9 in the post-season (a .710 winning percentage, tops in MLB history) and a spotless 8-0 in the World Series. He's outwitted the more famous likes of Tony La Russa, Joe Torre, and Mike Sciosia (twice) in the playoffs. And he's accomplished all of this while defty navigating a carnivorous media, a fanbase that universally bleats "What's Fran-coma doing?!?" upon the arrival of a two-game losing streak, and a clubhouse that has more distinctive personalities from diverse cultural backgrounds than you'd find at a UN meeting. It seems obvious from this box seat: Terry Francona is the best manager in the game, and everyone else is playing for the wild card.