Terry Francona, the Red Sox and the Way of the World

All weekend, wherever you went in the North End on Hanover Street for a coffee and some conversation, the firing of Red Sox manager Terry Francona was at the top of the A-list of breaking news.

Bostonians tend to treat sports as though sports was about important world events.

Francona’s end was like the D-Day invasion, the landing on the moon of Apollo 12 astronanats and the collapse of the Berlin Wall and Russia, the collapse of the stock market in 2008 or the bankruptcy of Enron.

In other words, Francona’s demise was big, big news and treated quite seriously here.

Francona’s end was like everything good we have going on in our lives. The situation simply doesn’t last forever. Nothing lasts forever. Everything is always changing.

The Red Sox, who were written up at the beginning of the season as the greatest baseball team ever in this city’s history won 90 games, had four players in the top ten for batting but finished out of the money after a colossal collapse in September.

Not only should Francona have been fired but a good number of Red Sox players heads should have rolled.

Even though Francona took responsibility for the collapse  and for finishing out of the money, it wasn’t all his fault.

Francona is gone. We hope others will be dealt wish sharply but they won’t. Their lucrative contracts are too strong. They are paid too much – and in the final analysis, they just didn’t care.

This explains the sorry September finish out of the money.

Red Sox nation needs to re-order itself. Its domestic policy is in need of repair.