Terry Francona says Red Sox owners ‘don’t ... love baseball’ and treat team like a ‘toy or hobby’

Terry Francona says Red Sox owners ‘don’t ... love baseball’ and treat team like a ‘toy or hobby’

 

Even Yankees fans are going to want to read this Red Sox book.

Terry Francona says the Red Sox owners treat the team like a “toy or a hobby” and Tom Werner, Larry Lucchino and John Henry “don’t ... love baseball,” in a soon-to-be-released book he authored with Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy.

“I don’t think they love baseball. I think they like baseball” Francona says in “Francona: The Red Sox Years,” which comes out Jan. 22. “It’s revenue, and I know that’s their right and their interest because they’re owners ... It’s still more of a toy or a hobby for them. It’s not their blood. They’re going to come in and out of baseball. It’s different for me. Baseball is my life.”

Francona, who led Boston to two World Series titles — including the club’s first since 1918 — in eight years with the Red Sox, has been mostly silent about his time in Boston since he and the team parted ways at the end of the 2011 season.

Following his exit, the Globe ran a lengthy story about Francona’s final year with the Red Sox wherein team sources spoke about the team’s epic collapse (they blew a nine-game lead in the wild-card race with less than a month to go), the Beer and Chicken clubhouse culture and areas of Francona’s personal life (his marriage was failing and the team was concerned that his use of pain medication was affecting his job — a claim he denied). Henry denied that ownership was the source of the story, and scolded Boston radio hosts for “smearing” them in suggesting they fed the information to the Globe.

“Somebody went out of their way to make me look pretty bad,” Francona said of the report.

In the same book — which will be excerpted in Sports Illustrated this week — former general manager Theo Epstein says that ownership complained that the roster — beloved in Boston for their Idiots and Dirt Dog image — wasn’t “sexy.”

“They told us we didn’t have any marketable players. We need some sexy guys. Talk about the tail wagging the dog,” Epstein, now with the Cubs, says. “We’d become too big. It was the farthest thing removed from what we set out to be.”

Francona was hired to manage the Cleveland Indians this winter. He spent last year with ESPN, taking over for Bobby Valentine, who replaced him in Boston. Valentine only lasted a year in Beantown guiding the Red Sox through a tumultuous 69-93 campaign, their worst record since 1965.