About two weeks after the Red Sox’ 2011 collapse was complete, the Boston Globe’s Bob Holher wrote an article that made numerous claims about what happened with the Red Sox behind the scenes, including claims that problems in manager Terry Francona’s personal life had affected the team’s play.
Terry Francona Says: ‘Someone Cut My Legs Out From Under Me’
Thursday, in an interview on the "Big Show" on Boston radio station WEEI, Francona said that he was "caught off guard" by some of what Hohler wrote:
Francona said that he was under the impression, after talking with reporter Bob Hohler the night before the story ran, that he had corrected the record and that there would be no suggestion that he had an issue with pain medications. And so, he was surprised when reading the story to see that such suggestions remained.
“When I hung up with Bob, I was under the impression that he understood. I could have gotten him to talk to [Dr. Larry Ronan, a Red Sox physician]. I was under the impression that wasn’t part of the story. We definitely got our signals crossed,” said Francona. “I would have put up more of a fight [to deny the allegations].”
Hohler’s article has been quite controversial; there appears, from the WEEI story, that there’s still a bit of bad blood and hurt feelings on Francona’s part.
Francona did an unexpectedly good job — given his almost complete lack of experience in the area — filling in as Fox TV analyst during the World Series. The WEEI article notes that Francona might be "considering" similar positions for the 2012 season.
One assumes that he wouldn’t be likely to be assigned to work any games involving the Red Sox. Not for a while, anyway. Not surprisingly, Francona declined to comment on the Red Sox’ hire of Bobby Valentine.
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