|
BOSTON -- Ever since 1933, the Boston Red Sox had been chiefly owned by one man, his widow or his foundation. They were baseball's last Mom-and-Pop show. The O'Malleys sold the Dodgers to a media tycoon a few years back and ever since family-run baseball franchises seemed a quaint ideal, linked to a time when teams traveled by train and actually scheduled doubleheaders.
That era officially came to an end Friday when the Red Sox, one of the American League's four charter franchises, changed hands. Out went the Yawkey, and in came a group of businessman, most of them from out of town.
Understand that in Boston, residents from outlying suburbs are viewed as foreign nationals. So the notion that the Red Sox were going to be run chiefly by one man from Florida and another from -- gulp -- southern California was regarded with more than a little suspicion.
|
|
(Tom) Werner, (John) Henry and their colleagues
have to be careful not to trample tradition and upset the locals.
That, in the end, will determine how successful the new owners
will be. They must carefully modernize the Red Sox without
disturbing the past. |
That was particularly true when the group headed by John Henry and Tom Werner edged out the sentimental favorites -- local businessmen Joe O'Donnell and Steve Karp -- in the process.
Analysts insisted that "the fix was in," that Henry-Werner were the handpicked successors of commissioner Bud Selig, who, they insisted, was carefully manipulating the sale of the Sox from Milwaukee.
O'Donnell and Karp, sensing that their bid would not prevail, briefly partnered with Henry-Werner, only to have the union dissolve in a power struggle 24 hours later.
Thursday night, outgoing CEO John Harrington emerged to announce the winners, and it was if white smoke could be seen eminating from the ancient ballpark to signal the moment.
Henry, Werner et al, awoke the following morning to see the front page of the Boston Herald, which featured a mock rendition of Fenway's famed Green Monster and this headline: Visitors 1, Boston 0.
Welcome to Boston, guys. Hope you didn't think $700 million would buy you any good will.
For months, the incoming owners had mostly existed only in thumbnail photos in newspapers and in fleeting images on television. They met behind closed doors, plotted their strategy in board rooms, did their bidding in private, by phone.
But Friday afternoon, fresh off their their winning hand from the night before, they emerged from their hibernation. One by one, they entered the Diamond Club at Fenway Park and together laid claim to their elusive and expensive prize.
It seemed that not until then did the realization fully sink in. But as one member after another stepped to the microphone to make introductory remarks, it was evident that they were part of an historic transfer.
Outside New England, it was a simple (if costly) transaction. Inside New England, a seismic effect could be felt.
Harrington, the last direct link to the Yawkey family, choked up at the mention of Tom and Jean Yawkey and noted that they would have been proud to see their team come under the control of the new group.
Starting with former Sen. George Mitchell and followed by Henry, Werner, and Larry Lucchino, the new owners spoke with reverence and awe about their pricey purchase.
"What an incredible opportunity for any human being," said Henry, who must still divest his ownership stake in the Florida Marlins and will assume the lead role in the group.
From the beginning, the owners seemed to understand that they were wearing the branded out Outsiders, like some version of baseball's Scarlet Letter. Henry vowed that fans would soon see him as "a resident" of the city. Werner noted that Yawkey himself was "once an outsider," having been raised in South Carolina and made sure to mention that while a student at Harvard, he often cut classes to attend games at Fenway.
"We're ready to prove that we'll be responsible citizens," Werner added.
They also made sure to pay homage to the team's history and heritage, while hinting at changes. Most of all, they vowed to break the team's 83-year-long championship drought.
Referring to "the curse of the Bambino," a bit of lore which suggests the team's inability to win a championship rests with Babe Ruth's decision to curse the franchise when he was sold to the arch-rival Yankees, Werner said: "We prefer to think of it as a spell -- which we intend to break."
In another recognition of the team's tradition, the group reiterated its plans to refurbish Fenway Park, rather than build an entirely new stadium on amnother site.
"Our plan," said Lucchino, "is to renovate and expand (Fenway) ... Our game plan is to focus on that."
The Henry-Werner-Lucchino group was alone among the bidders in its desire to maintain the stadium, which has the smallest seating capacity of any of the 30 major-league ballparks and lacks many of the modern amenities others boast.
Most feel this plan is untenable. Several studies done for the club in recent years have suggested that expanding or rebuilding Fenway is out of the question from an engineering standpoint. Fenway, research has shown, is built on swampland that simply is incapable of shouldering additional weight. Moreover, the park's footprint can't be expanded much because of surrounding businesses in the area.
A far more realistic plan would be to build a new ballpark on the city's waterfront, on a site not unlike the vista where the magnificient Pacific Bell Park sits in San Francisco.
Without a new ballpark -- and the attendant revenue streams -- the new owners will find matching the Yankees dollar-for-dollar impossible. The Sox played to better than 99-percent capacity last year and charged the highest-ticket prices in the game.
One asset in the new owner's favor is the New England Sports Network (NESN). Eighty percent of the network was part of the package and some media analysts have pegged the network's value alone at nearly $300 million.
The team's over-air TV rights have, by all accounts, been criminally undervalued for years, and it hasn't helped that the Sox have partnered with three different on-air TV outlets in the last half-dozen years.
These and other issues must be resolved to haul the Sox out of their comfortable tradition-bound past, where they've existed for too long. At the same time, Werner, Henry and their colleagues have to be careful not to trample tradition and upset the locals.
That, in the end, will determine how successful the new owners will be. They must carefully modernize the Red Sox without disturbing the past.
They've already proven to be savvy negotiators. Now, let's see how well they can juggle.
Sean McAdam of the Providence Journal covers baseball for ESPN.com.
| |
|
