November 30, 2011
Why some players flame out at Fenway
by Lenny Megliola/
John Lackey is one example of a Red Sox acquisition who struggled - or just couldn’t hack it. (photo: Getty Images)
Boston’s a wonderful town to visit. You just might not want to hang your hat in the Hub. Especially if it’s a baseball cap.
Why do some players the Red Sox bring in via a trade or free agency succeed and others fail, monumentally, in some cases?
Curt Schilling and Jason Bay come here and thrive. Edgar Renteria couldn’t wait to get out of town. Some people think that Carl Crawford might not be built for playing at Fenway. A player, no matter how talented, who lets the pressure of a new environment get to him, will struggle. For Crawford, it’s only been one year, so we’ll see.
Is Boston really that hard for some players to adjust?
“I think there’s something to it,” Red Sox president/CEO Larry Lucchino said. “You try to find out in advance if a player can play here. We try to do that. But it’s not a science.”
“Any workplace situation is different than any other,” said former Red Sox general manager Dan Duquette (Dalton, Mass.). “Renteria never got comfortable here. When he left, he did well. He was a clutch player, but not here. Orlando Cabrera was a clutch player here.”
WEEI.com site editor Rob Bradford has changed his mind about how daunting playing in Boston can be.
“I thought it was overrated until Crawford got here,” Bradford said. “I haven’t seen anyone affected like he was. I think what hurts guys like Crawford is when the team loses. For instance when (Julio) Lugo, (J.D.) Drew and (Dustin) Pedroia started in ’07, they all sort of struggled a bit, but others were picking up the slack. I think Crawford was afforded some slack when the team got hot.”
Indeed, Crawford was. But he never came around, and during the Red Sox’ paralyzing September, patience with the $142 million outfielder was burned away.
“He came from a place where there were a lot of empty seats,” said Dick Berardino (Watertown, Mass.), a Red Sox player development consultant who has been in the organization for 44 years. “You hope when a player gets here they get used to it.”
“A year under his belt will help Crawford’s acclimation,” Lucchino said.
If it doesn’t, the intense booing at Fenway Park might blow Crawford all the way back to Tampa-St. Pete.
When Lucchino came to the Red Sox (from the Padres) in 2002, he found out in a hurry what a big deal the Red Sox were when he attended the annual Boston Baseball Writers’ dinner that filled a ballroom at a city hotel. “If we tried that in San Diego, we would have had a fraction of the crowd,” he said. Lucchino was stunned to see so many baseball writers and TV crews, the “proliferation of media.”
Duquette — who often clashed with the Boston media and was ousted as Sox GM when Lucchino and the new regime took over — finally is returning the major leagues. After nearly a decade out of the game, Duquette recently was hired as the Baltimore Orioles’ executive vice president of baseball operations.
In his time in Boston, Duquette found out “the passion here is intense.” It’s not for every player. Sometimes you find out too late. When evaluating a player, “there are so many variables,” he said. “You don’t know how to eliminate the risks in those variables.”
How tough will a player be, how much character will he show when things aren’t going well? Will he bounce back, or get beaten down by the pressure, his season shot to hell? “The human element is always the wild card,” Duquette said.
Big-league scouts exist to size up young talent.
“Scouts look for the player’s personality and makeup,” Berardino said.
The talent exists, the kid is signed and starts in the low minors. Then what? “You’ve got to be lucky sometimes,” Berardino said.
When he was with the Red Sox, Curt Schilling’s personality and makeup overpowered any pressure playing in Boston could throw at him. Berardino spotted that a long time ago, when he was managing Schilling in Greensboro, N.C., in 1987, a year after Boston signed him.
“We were playing in Savannah, and he was losing 2-1 in the eighth inning. I asked him if we should tie the game or go ahead, would he be OK to go out for the ninth inning. We scored twice to go ahead 3-2. Curt had struck out 13. He went out for the ninth inning and struck out the side. Sixteen strikeouts.”
Now no one knew back then (except perhaps uber-brash Schilling) what a big-game pitcher he’d become in the majors. It’s clear now that he had no fear about pitching for the Red Sox, who, along with the fans, had big expectations for him.
“Schilling likes to be on stage. He likes to talk,” Berardino said. “He’d be the one to say, ‘Give me the ball’ for the seventh game of the World Series.”
Even before Crawford’s first season in Boston was over, there were fears and complaints from the fans (likely management, too) that this environment was too overwhelming for him.
“I think a player’s personality has something to do (with how he performs in Boston),” Berardino said. “It’s a full house. There’s pressure.”
Manny Ramirez had several sensational years with the Red Sox. He seemed impervious to pressure. Being in Manny’s World seemed to make him immune to everything going on, except his next at-bat.
Lucchino doesn’t think it was quite that way.
“Manny was never comfortable here,” he said. “He seemed more comfortable in Cleveland, where he could play in relative anonymity. Manny was very affected by day-to-day matters (in Boston). I don’t think he was in his own world.”
Duquette brought Manny to Boston: “I knew him when he was in high school. He was a natural hitter at a young age. I didn’t know how he’d react. I was very disappointed how his career ended.”
Bradford singled out Bay as a player who got what the Boston market and media was all about.
“He was a great example of handling it the perfect way. He obliged every interview and didn’t run when slumps happened,” Bradford said. “I think two things happen to guys who have a hard time (in Boston). One, they make too much of it out of the gate, listening to clubhouse rants, such as from (Kevin) Youkilis about how bad it is when in reality it isn’t that bad. Two, the players make it harder on themselves than they need to. I told one player this year, if I were advising players on how to deal with the media in Boston, you should just remember to be accountable, and remember writers’ first names.
“That will go a long way to having people say nice things about you.”
When they burned out in Boston and left, nice things weren’t said about Renteria, Lugo, Matt Clement, Drew, Mike Cameron and others. Crawford and John Lackey have taken their place on the blame list. Crawford clearly is a better player than he showed this season. Maybe, as Lucchino suggests, he just needed a season of acclimation. For Lackey, it might be hopeless.
Pity both of them for the wrath they’ll incur if they don’t turn it around next season. You can’t hide your face so the world never finds you.
This article originally appeared in the November-December 2011 issue of New England Baseball Journal.
Lenny Megliola writes for The MetroWest Daily News and The Boston Globe and appears regularly on WEEI. He can be reached at feedback@baseballjournal.com
