MLB: Why did Terry Francona and Bruce Bochy come back as managers?
Golf rounds and relax holidays were not enough to keep two 60 -year -old patterns away from the game for a long time.
Goodyear, Arizona – Alyssa Francona had several lost calls from his father. Then, his sister sent him a text message.
“Dad is trying to contact you,” said the message. “Be comprehensive. It’s very excited.”
Alyssa, the eldest daughter of the veteran manager of the MLB Terry Francona, was not sure what to think about it. His father was happily retired and felt healthy for the first time in years. He traveled more, his golf game was improving and, according to all the reports, the time spent with his family and friends was gratifying.
If Francona, 65, was anxious to be a manager again, he did not prove it.
It is not surprising that their daughters were happy that Francona seems to have ended the hard work of the game, but they knew his father better than anyone: he loved being in the Dugout and in the Club house. And there is “nothing like that ninth entry,” Francona would say later.
Alyssa called her sister Leah before calling her father.
“She said Cincinnati’s boys were talking to him,” Alyssa recalled. “Don’t break the bubble.”
Kim Bochy had A similar experience in 2022.
The wife of the manager Bruce Bochy was looking forward to the retirement of her husband. Bochy, 69, left baseball after the 2019 season, but the two had not yet enjoyed their new freedom, since the Covid-19 Pandemia soon closed the world and, like Francona, Bochy had several health problems to address. Just when the two began to enjoy the fruits of a lifetime in the game, the new general manager of the Texas Rangers, Chris Young, called them.
“Once Cy came to visit, once he crossed the door, I thought: ‘My God’, I think this is not going to be good,” Kim Bochy recalled. “In my perspective, I was very, very happy and very happy to have finished. He too. I tried to deter it, I did my best to deter it from accepting the work.
“Why do you want to go back? You have won three world series, have you done everything in this game. Why do you want to go back? And he said: ‘I want to win another World Series'”.
Kim finally accepted the idea of her husband’s return and Bochy did not take long to achieve that goal, taking the Rangers to her first title in 2023. Now Francona has the same desire to restore the glory of a franchise as the new manager of the Cincinnati Reds. When Francona left the dugout of the Cleveland Guardians after the 2023 season, he swore he had finished. Baseball did not agree.
“I wasn’t planning to return,” he told AM850. “It really wasn’t.”
By the time Francona left Cleveland, after 10 years, his body was falling apart. Ask him what most afflicted and shakes his head.
“That is the problem, there were about 12 things,” Francona said with a smile from his office in spring training. “I hurt both knees, the two hips, the right shoulder. Approximately one week after the season in Cleveland, I replaced my shoulder and I had three hernias.
“Take anticoagulants due to blood clots. So, when we fly, I fuck my right leg, we take off, I have my pants. When we land, I don’t have left.”
Those problems finally achieved it. He felt that he depended too much on his coaches and was not fulfilling his number one rule, one that possibly affected his health.
“I think that if you are directing correctly, you are putting the players and the organization first and you are putting yourself in a ultimate distant place,” Francona said. “I needed to be far. When you know you need to be far, you probably are late.”
Francon’s short retirement consisted of spending time with his grandchildren, golf trips to Mexico, a holiday in Hawaii and seeing some university football.
“I was no longer married to my phone,” Francona added. “My most important decision was if I had to drink another cup of coffee.”
He even offered to take care of grandchildren while his daughters were on vacation in Europe last summer.
“I almost come back at that time,” Francona joked.
Taking care of a 7 -year -old girl already could have been more exhausting than administering, according to her daughter. Shortly after arriving in Europe, Alyssa sent a text message to one of the girls, asking him what the grandfather was doing.
“She said: ‘Grandfather needed a day of rest,'” said Alyssa laughing. “You are taking a day off and we are like in the 48 hours of what is a 10 -day trip!”
Francona told that story at baseball winter meetings in December, not long after accepting work in Cincinnati. The Reds flew to Tucson to see him for the vacancy they had after the team fired David Bell near the end of the season. Francona was “enjoying some beers” in a football match when he received the call that Cincinnati was interested – former announcer Marty Brennaman was the first to comment on the matter – and shortly after, the president of Baseball Operations of Los Rojos, Nick Kall, and the general manager, Brad Meador, were at home. A day later, the owner Bob Castellini was also there.
“I was sitting in my rocking chair talking to them and I realized that I was about to start a couple of times,” Francona recalled. “I said, ‘we could’ do this or ‘we could’ do that. And I thought, ‘Go, go, go!'”
But he did not advance. The work was his if he wanted it, and on October 4 he accepted it. After four years on the bench of the Philadelphia Phillies, eight more in Boston and ten in Cleveland, followed by a sabbatical year, Terry “Tito” Francona was back. The news came unexpectedly even to his own family.
“We were making jokes about his score in the golf,” Alyssa said. “If I started throwing above 80, maybe I accepted a job, but, according to all the reports, I was also throwing well in the field. It was a bit surprising.”
Many of the contemporaries From Francona, starting with Bochy, they were not so surprised. Even after having achieved its goal of winning another world series after returning, Bochy is still active, and his 70th birthday will be fulfilled at the beginning of the 2025 season.
“I just went through that,” he said. “I know the feeling. You’re leaving and strange. You think: ‘God, I left too soon.’ All those thoughts go through your head. You just miss what you love to do.”
Like Francona, Bochy didn’t look for a job as much as work looked for him. That is why his wife knew that problems were coming once Chris Young crossed that door. A team needs you. It’s hard to turn your back on that.
“I am so happy that I am back, and I was not surprised when Bochy returned,” said Colorado Rockies captain, Bud Black. “Don’t ask me why I simply know those boys and knew they hadn’t finished.”
Black, 67, has been the manager of Colorado Rockies since 2017. The rockies have not been close to the postseason since 2018, losing more than 100 games in consecutive seasons in 2023 and 2024. They have given him little to work, but still returns for more.
“It’s not just one thing, it’s all,” Black said. “It’s the passion for the game. I don’t think he ever leaves you. When you have the desire to continue in this, to continue in the fight, it feels good.”
Several managers with which AM850 spoke echoed Black’s comments. Even those who were a little surprised by the departure from Francona’s retirement understand what motivates him, which prevents men who do not need money or glory to move away forever.
“I sent him a text message immediately and said: ‘Are you crazy?'” Said the manager of the San Francisco Giants, Bob Melvin. “But there are boys who are simply baseball boys. They carry it in the blood. It’s what they have to do. He is one of them.
“It’s a legend.”
Melvin is anxious to exchange alignment cards before the first regular season of Francona’s regular season to Dugout at the end of this month, when the Reds will receive the Giants on the opening day. Before the confrontation between two 60 -year -old managers, Melvin, 63, was asked why the teams are resorting to some of the most veteran guards to lead their clubs after a period in which the younger captains were fashionable throughout the sport.
“Due to success,” said Melvin, citing Dusty Baker and Bochy, who won World Series titles in this decade. “Whenever there is success, there is a wave that goes in that direction.”
Francona hopes to catch himself for that wave. It has a young and ultra talented team that apparently had a lower performance than expected last season, when it won only 77 games and ended in fourth place in the National League. Central.
The team player Jeimer Candelario is among the players in the training field of the Reds who believe that his new manager will provide just what the team needs to change that in next season.
“Leadership,” said Candelario. “I think he is a member of the Hall of Fame. He has done this for a long time. When he was appointed manager, he came to the Dominican Republic to see the boys. That was different. The way I see it is with much respect because we know he is a leader.”
After replacing the retirement holidays with presentation trips to meet his new players, Francona admits that he was not sure how he would have filled his free time if he had not returned. There is a limit to play golf and travel that a person can do. In addition, directing is the only thing he knows how to do.
“Apart from taking a real estate course for two weeks, this is all I have done,” Francona concluded. “I feel comfortable here.”
