You mean like every team in MLB?

While I don’t want to make too much of the beer/chicken stuff that happened in Boson, there were obviously some rifts in that clubhouse that seemed to contribute to poor performance. There needs to be someone on the team to MANAGE such things. Not necessarily be the police, but provide guidance for the overall good of the team. Francona thought he was dealing with grown men who did not need a daddy around, but he was apparently wrong.

As for in-game strategy, there are high-percentage decisions (at least that is how they are perceived) and low-percentage plays. Most times, most managers will go for the high-percentage play, which ends in many of the making the same decisions. It does not mean the decision is wrong, or that the guy making it doesn’t have his own brain.

Beer and chicken jokes are going to become a staple of baseball humor, .. like “no crying in baseball” rants.

It is well on its way to become as ubiquitous as knock knock jokes, .. and that’s a good thing!

Francona’s biggest fault is that he treats ball players like adults. His game management and baseball IQ is excellent.

When those players act like little boys instead of grown men, the wheels come off the operation.

Seeing as the Red Sox have a lot of players acting like children instead of men, since getting rid of the players is more difficult than the manager, a change was needed.

The players need to man up and accept responsibility for Francona’s predicament… Not the management

Pretty much all managers make the same decisions, they are mostly interchangable…you can just hope your team doesn’t wind up with a guy that is totally clueless or an over-manager.

Perhaps I’m implying that BV will be the cause, eh? Ok, then, but nothing I’ve committed to cyber space states that Valentine will be the cause of the Sox’s epically bad performance this season. Such an implication might be there, but it is my contention that only the anti-Manadites will see just that in what I’ve said.

Allow me then, to be perfectly clear: I think the Sox are perfectly capable of being in 4th place this season regardless of BV, but it will be BV that bears the blame. And Terry Francona will have the last laugh.
As to your “true story” allow me to weigh in (again) that I, contrary to you, feel that Managers DO have a noticeable impact on the game and its outcome. Much the same way that Bernard Law Montgomery had a noticeable effect in Africa, though he fired no bullets, a manager will have a noticeable effect in a clubhouse and on results.

Yeesh. You Anti-Manadites…

Would the Tamba Bay Rays would be even half as good as they are without Joe Maddon? No way. Hes the heart and soul of that team..but oh yeah..hes just the lowly manager..

It is baseball, you pitch the ball, you hit the ball, you catch the ball. The is a reason the guy is called a “manager” and not a coach. Head coaches in football, hockey, and basketball have a huge effect on a team. Managers, not so much.

(I guess that’s sort of a backhanded compliment for Tito: ANYBODY, including the Janitor, could do a pretty good job filling in for McCarver).