Podcast: Larry Lucchino looks back on impactful career with Sox

Former Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino reflected on his career with the Red Sox on The Base Path Podcast. (Getty Images)

The latest guest on The Base Path Podcast is Red Sox Hall of Famer Larry Lucchino, who served as President/CEO during an historic 14-year period 2002 through 2015.

Lucchino is credited for helping the Red Sox win three World Series, saving and enhancing Fenway Park, and establishing the Major League Baseball record for consecutive sellouts.

Lucchino will forever be linked to former Red Sox GM Theo Epstein after bringing the Brookline native back to Boston in 2001 after the pair worked together in Baltimore and San Diego. The Red Sox won World Series championships in 2004 and 2007 before Lucchino’s relationship with the GM grew contentious, and Epstein left to become president of the Chicago Cubs in 2011.

“I didn’t see the credit necessarily going to Theo as much as I saw it going to the organization,” Lucchino said. “Theo was quite a good evaluator, and that was what I was looking for when I made him general manager. He was very ambitious and driven, so we took advantage of that. He was a local boy made good, so that was an inherently good story. He was from Brookline and grew up as a Red Sox fan.

“I think that he deserved credit for the success of the team in 2004. We kind of won without him in 2007, and 2013 was Ben Cherington … When we shifted from Theo Epstein to Ben Cherington, that was a very high-quality change. Ben had none of the ego issues that Theo had, but shared a lot of the skills that Theo possessed as well.”

Lucchino and the late Jim Skeffington assembled a group that in 2015 purchased Boston’s longtime Triple-A affiliate. Lucchino was critical on the podcast of the direction that the big league club has taken since his departure.

“Well, I’ve been frustrated as well,” Lucchino said. “We develop good young players (in Worcester) like Jarren Duran and Triston Casas … We lose those guys fairly quickly, and we have problems retaining stars (at the big league level) — or have in the last two years.

“I think the No. 1 thing in building and maintaining a solid franchise is having it appear to be real that the team is committed to winning. I think that there is more that the team has to do to show the world that it is committed to winning.”

Lucchino made a commitment on August 17, 2018, to keep the Triple-A team in this region for more than 30 more years by negotiating an agreement with the City of Worcester and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

The ballpark, “Polar Park,” opened in April, 2021. The park is the fifth that Lucchino has been responsible for designing and/or renovating, following Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, Petco Park in San Diego, Fenway Park in Boston, and JetBlue Park in Lee County, Florida.

“I think the situation in Pawtucket presented itself, and they were soon to be without a lease,” Lucchino said. “I thought it was terribly undervalued. That was the reason why we went in that direction.”

Listen to the entire podcast with Larry Lucchino.

The New England Baseball Journal podcast is brought to you by the University of Nebraska High School.

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