Terry Francona

Terry Jon Francona

• Bats Left, Throws Left
• Height 6' 1", Weight 190 lb.
• School University of Arizona
• High School New Brighton High School
• Debut August 19, 1981
• Final Game April 19, 1990
• Born April 22, 1959 in Aberdeen, SD USA

BR Page

BR Manager page

[edit] Biographical Information

Terry Francona played ten years in the majors and has been a major league manager for nearly a decade, winning two World Series.

Francona played college baseball for three years at the University of Arizona and won the 1980 Golden Spikes Award. When his team won the College World Series that year, he was named the series Most Outstanding Player. He was inducted into the College Baseball Hall of Fame in 2011.

In the 1978 Amateur World Series, Terry hit .350/.366/.550 as a DH-LF for Team USA, helping them to a Silver Medal. He tied Jae-bak Kim, Mitsugu Kobayashi and Graham Ward for 5th in the Series in hits (15) and tied Jerry Desimone for the most triples (2). Francona then was an All-Star outfielder with Team USA in the 1979 Intercontinental Cup, helping the club win Bronze.

Francona was selected by the Montreal Expos in the first round of the 1980 amateur draft and reached the majors in less than two seasons, when he was called up shortly after the 1981 strike with the Expos in a playoff race. He played often in the outfield during those first weeks, sharing time with Tim Wallach and Jerry White, although the veteran White got most of the playing time in the postseason. In 1982, after starting the year as a back-up, he became the starting left-fielder in May, when Tim Raines was moved to second base. He hit .327 in a month as a starter then seriously injured his knee on June 16 when he got his spikes caught in the warning track at Busch Stadium. He was out for the remainder of the season, and then hit poorly when he returned in 1983. He was hitting .217 without a homer on September 1, then caught fire, batting .333 and slugging .550 over the last month. That performance convinced the Expos to let Warren Cromartie leave over the off-season, and when 1984 began, Francona was the starting first baseman. His hot hitting continued, as he was battling for the National League batting title when a second major injury set him back significantly. He was hitting .346 with a league-leading 19 doubles when he twisted his knee trying to avoid a tag by John Tudor on June 14. Once again, he missed the remainder of the season, but this time, when he came back in 1985, he was no longer the same player. First, his speed was gone, and second, his time of hitting well above .300 was over. Since he never had much power and did not draw many walks, his value as a player became limited, as his .267 average was coupled with an OBP of only .299. At the end of spring training the next year, he was released, finding a job as a back-up with the Chicago Cubs, where he hit .250 in 86 games in 1986.

He was one of the players who replaced Pete Rose as first baseman of the Cincinnati Reds in 1987. However, his rival for the job, Nick Esasky, outhit him by a wide margin - Francona hit .227 - and he was no longer considered a potential starter after that. He played for the Cleveland Indians in 1988 then closed out his major-league career by playing 90 games for the Milwaukee Brewers in 1989 and another three games in 1990. Coincidentally, his father, Tito Francona, had also closed out his major-league career by playing for the Brewers, in their inaugural season of 1970.

After his playing career ended, Francona coached the GCL White Sox in 1991 and spent four years as a minor league manager in the Chicago White Sox system, including a season as skipper of the Birmingham Barons when Michael Jordan played for the club. He received good reviews for his deft handling of the media circus around Jordan. In 1996, he was a Detroit Tigers coach.

After a four year stint as the Philadelphia Phillies manager, when he failed to get the team out of its decade-long rut, he spent a season as a Texas Rangers coach and another in the same role with the Oakland Athletics. He managed Team USA in the 2001 Baseball World Cup.

In 2004, he replaced Grady Little as Boston Red Sox manager, and led them to a World Series title in his first season. He returned to the postseason in 2005 then after an off-year in 2006, he brought the Red Sox a division title and a second World Championship in four years in 2007, sweeping the Colorado Rockies in the World Series to give him an 8-0 record in the Fall Classic. The Red Sox also were in the postseason in 2008 and 2009, missing the World Series by one game the first year, before losing in the first round the next year. After missing the post season in 2010, his Red Sox seemed poised to return to the playoffs in 2011. The team would suffer a historic collapse, losing a 9-game lead on the last day of the season to lose the wild card to the Tampa Bay Rays. Both the Red Sox loss to the Baltimore Orioles and the Rays' victory over the Yankees came on walk-off hits. Two days later it was announced Francona would not be returning for the next season.

After spending the 2012 season as an analyst for ESPN, Francona was named the manager of the Cleveland Indians for 2013 on October 6, 2012. He had been with the Indians both as a player and as an assistant to General Manager Mark Shapiro, and his father had played a number of years for the team as well.

The son of Tito Francona, he is often called "Tito" by his players. Grant Jackson played with both Tito and Terry Francona. Due to previous health issues, Francona has difficulty with his circulation and is often cold. Therefore he is always seen with a jacket on even on very hot days. In January 2013, he published an autobiography, co-written with Dan Shaughnessy, which recounted his triumphs with the Red Sox, but also included information on some of the weird happenings behind the scenes of his last couple of seasons in Boston.

Francona's son Nick was a freshman pitcher at the University of Pennsylvania in 2005, but missed 2006 due to injuries.

[edit] Notable Achievements

• Division Titles: 1 (2007)
• Other post-season appearances: 4 (2004, 2005, 2008 & 2009 Wild Card)
• AL Pennants: 2 (2004 & 2007)
• Managed two World Series Champions with the Boston Red Sox (2004 & 2007)

[edit] Year-By-Year Managerial Record

[edit] Further Reading

• Terry Francona and Dan Shaughnessy: Francona: The Red Sox Years, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, New York, NY, 2013. ISBN 978-0547928173

[edit] Related Sites