I finally got the chance to crack the Terry Francona book open, and man, it does not disappoint. Chapter freakin’ one and Tito comes out swinging. The immediate target: Larry Lucchino. And why do I get the feeling this won’t be the last time in the story Lucchino is targeted?
As the story goes, the Red Sox were supposed to all wear sweatshirts with WORLD CHAMPION RED SOX on the front during the 2004 “rolling rally.” Well, what do you know, the shirts were nowhere to be found on the morning of the parade. When Lucchino found out, he muttered, “Can’t you guys do one thing right?” The following is an excerpt that came next:
Goddamn, Larry, we just won the fucking World Series, Francona thought to himself. That should be good enough. Who cares what we wear? We could go down the street naked and they’d still clap for us. It doesn’t matter. This is the greatest day of our lives.
In the end, Francona sported a University of Arizona cap and nobody found the sweatshirts. Theo’s quote:
“I think we lost those sweatshirts on purpose. They wanted these official, marketing, licensed sweatshirts to be worn. They were going to sell them. They were hideous. They looked like ’80’s Zubaz-type sweatshirts. They were this awful, faded blue. No one wanted to wear them, so I think we had the clubbies lose them.”
And the most ominous quote from Francona in the first chapter:
“There’s one thing I’m going to be proud of after I’m gone,” Francona said on the days after it ended. “I think they’re going to find there’s more shit that goes on than they realize.”
And didn’t that turn out to be true last season? I know most people have already read this, but if the rest of the book is as juicy as the first chapter, I’ll be posting more excerpts.
