ancientsoxfogey wrote:

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left coast bosox fan wrote:

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My take on the group of tweets I've seen.

There was a lot of clubhouse dissension lead by our 'leaders', guys like Beckett and Tek and Theo did not have Tito's back here. Squabbles about shit like buses.

Henry canned Tito yesterday and the Tito's decision thing is gloss.

Tito was not contacted by upper management/ownership during the entire slide. Not even texts.

I have not been involved in studying any of the "reporting" of this, so I am totally ignorant of the background.  However, one thing I've learned about reports in the electronic age is that opinions on the state of things are like you-know-what, everyone has one.

Just asking:  Could the truth of the matter be not exactly like anything that has been reported thus far?  A theory:  One thing we DO know is that Francona has had various physical ailments over his years here.  The environment in Sports Boston may have had something to do with that.  This year, for whatever reasons, there seem to have been "issues in the clubhouse," those issues seem to have predated the collapse, and for whatever reasons they went on, with Francona unwilling or unable to do anything about them.  Maybe Francona was simply too worn out to do anything about them.  And maybe, if Francona wasn't ready at this moment to step down, management did it for him, basically telling him, "Thanks for the years, but we think you really are at the end of your physical capabilities to deal with the cauldron here."  A kind of mercy firing, if you will.

Now the players who precipitated things, that is an entirely different issue with which management needs to deal.  

If I am all wet, it is perfectly fine for people to say so.  I'd just like to think that after a successful run, it was simply circumstances of the passage of time and his condition that really did Francona in.  One thing that getting older sensitizes you to:  People can and do wear down, mentally and emotionally as well as physically, and at some point you can't handle the pressures of a situation, just like an old hitter who reaches the point where he can't get around on the fastball any more.