Book Review: 'Francona: The Red Sox Years'

Given Francona is the Tribe's new manager and I can never turn down a new baseball book, I picked up his new book just over a week ago and raced through it. It took me just over a week, which is pretty damn quick for me.

Like the majority of Tribe fans I was excited at the announcement of Tito as our new skipper and his influence has already completely re-shaped the team. Players are keen to play for him and his hire as manager really helped recruit those big free agent acquisitions like Swisher and Bourn. Whisper it quietly but I've always had a soft spot for the Red Sox (except when we play them of course) and they have kind of become my second team of sorts, if that sort of thing exists. So I was excited to read about Terry's years in Boston, from the 2004 and 2007 championships to that unforgettable collapse in 2011.

It's definitely an interesting read, no doubt about it. Co-written with Boston scribe Dan Shaughnessy, who had his fair share of issues with Francona during his reign in Beantown, the book flows seamlessly from year to year, written chronologically. At times it feels a bit like a book written about the Red Sox rather than Francona, with quotes dropped in here and there by Terry. However the third person style is effective and the focus is still on Terry as you'd expect. A lot of the time the book is pretty funny, Terry dropping F bombs during hilarious locker-room anecdotes.

The book has made quite a splash in the media due to the controversial words about the Red Sox owners, John Henry, Tom Werner and Larry Lucchino. Francona and Shaughnessy don't hold back as promised, with John Henry in particular coming across as a rather cold human being and Lucchino looking foolish most of the time (although at least he contributed to the book, unlike Henry). Ex-GM Theo Epstein was clearly very close with Francona in Boston and this shines throughout the book, Epstein coming through unscathed. Players like Pedroia and Lester are given lots of room, two obvious favourites of Francona. There are plenty of good stories involving those two and some touching moments with Lester especially. Manny Ramirez does not come off as well unfortunately (for him). Manny is painted as the ego-driven diva we all expected him to be. To Francona's credit he doesn't fully bash Manny but just tells it like it was and the stories speak for themselves. All very interesting from my point of view, there was plenty of stuff I didn't know before.

Overall I enjoyed the book and definitely feel like I know the Tribe's new manager a lot better now. Here's hoping that Francona leads us to a world championship or two and he writes a sequel with a more upbeat ending. One can dream right?

Rating: 4/5

Thanks for reading.