As Francona prepares to say goodbye, a tribute to his humor and humanity
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Tim Kurkjian, ESPN Senior Writer
During spring training in 2012, Terry Francona was working with ESPN. It was the year after he was fired as manager of the Boston Red Sox, a year before he was hired to manage Cleveland. Tito has a terrible sense of direction, so that spring, ESPN placed him in my care. My sense of direction is also horrible, but next to Tito, I am Vasco da Gama. Our first night in Florida, we were assigned to stay at a Disney property called Fort Wilderness. It wasn’t a hotel, but individual log cabins in the woods — complete with bunk beds, as if we were Cub Scouts.
“I thought it was a joke,” Francona remembers, laughing. “I thought when I walked in, a bunch of people were going to jump out from behind a curtain, say Surprise! then move us to a real hotel. It didn’t happen. I called room service. The lady at the front desk said, ‘Sir, at Camp Wilderness, room service is the Coke machine you saw when you checked in.'”
Ten minutes after we arrived, Tito called me.
“Do you want to come over to my cabin and make some s’mores?” he asked.
That is Tito Francona. Wherever he goes, whatever he does, he always finds himself in the middle of something and he always emerges unscathed, usually with a laugh, often directed at himself. That’s what makes him the funniest, most generous, most grounded, most beloved person that I’ve ever met in baseball. And it is sad for the game, and bad for the game, that this is expected to be Francona’s last week as a major league manager.
Today, the Guardians are honoring Francona with a video tribute, “Thank You, Tito” T-shirts and ticket deals for their last home game of the season. Francona is “expected to step away” after the season, and his self-deprecating sense of humor, vast baseball knowledge and incredible ability to connect with people of all kinds are just three reasons that he will go into the Hall of Fame as a manager as soon as he is eligible. Francona has won 1,948 games over 23 years managing the Philadelphia Phillies, Red Sox and Indians/Guardians. In 2004, he won Boston’s first world championship since 1918. His Red Sox won another World Series in 2007. In 2016, then in Cleveland, Francona nearly led another team to its first World Series since 1948.
His approach to managing is simple: Treat all his players with respect, make them all feel important, talk to them, relate to them. Ask them for their best and you will get their best. Francona’s preparation and observant nature are unmatched, and his preparation for every game, and every day, began with a game of cribbage. He often played with his players, which is highly unusual.
“You can learn a lot about a guy watching a guy play something other than baseball, even cribbage,” Francona said. “You see how someone takes a risk and wins, and you think, ‘I might be able to trust him in the ninth inning.’ I played for fun, but I also learned about my players.”
Dustin Pedroia and Josh Tomlin were among his regulars, and at one point in Boston, closer Jonathan Papelbon, who had never played, asked to play for money.
With his winnings, Francona said, “Pap built me a finished basement in my house.”
Francona had a unique relationship with his players. He poked fun at them, and vice versa. Francona and Pedroia were especially close. Francona thought that ESPN’s John Clayton, the late, great Hall of Fame football writer, looked like Pedroia — because they were both thin and balding. So, Tito arranged to have Clayton, pretending to be Pedroia, videotape a pep talk to the team before a big game. The whole team, including Pedroia, exploded in laughter.
There were so many laughs, and victories, in eight years in Boston. And yet if anything did go wrong with his team or one of his players, Francona was the first to confront the problem. No one could take a tense, stressful situation and smooth it over better than Francona. One night, a Japanese reporter, in a packed interview room after a difficult loss at Fenway, tried to ask a question in English about Daisuke Matsuzaka but struggled to find the right words.
When he was done, Francona said, “You’re from Western Pennsylvania, aren’t you?”
As, of course, is Francona. Everyone in the room howled — including the reporter.
Francona’s touch and feel for people was never more apparent than when he managed the Birmingham Barons in 1994 — the year Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player of all time, played baseball. It was a difficult task for everyone, including Francona. Jordan was a diligent worker and a great teammate, but he hadn’t played baseball since high school. Francona taught him to play the game, to respect the game. They were great friends then; they are great friends today.
“So, one night, we get off the bus after a game, our apartment complex was right next to a basketball court,” Francona said. “The guys start chirping at Michael. So he grabs four of us, manager, coaches, trainers, and says ‘We’re playing!’ I tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn’t listen. First time down the court, I set a pick for Michael at the top of the key. He screamed at me, ‘Get out of my way, I don’t need any damn pick!’ The game got chippy, and I’m in charge of Michael, I have to make sure he doesn’t get hurt. He dunked on some guy, nearly tore down the rim, then stood over the guy, screaming at him! I said, ‘That’s it, the game is over!'”
Francona played Yahtzee with Jordan on every bus trip — for money.
“Here I am making $29,000 a year as a Double-A manager,” Francona said, laughing. “Michael is the greatest basketball player, and the richest man in America. And he cheated to beat me at Yahtzee because he couldn’t bear to lose. I loved managing Michael. We had so many laughs.”
There weren’t many laughs in Philadelphia when Francona began his managerial career in the major leagues with the awful Phillies in 1997. He was given a young team full of players he had to teach not only how to play the game, but how to be professionals. One of Francona’s favorites was closer Wayne Gomes. He was young and raw, but no one tried harder than Gomes.
“Gomesy comes into a game to try to get a save, he gets to the mound and he’s got mustard all over his jersey,” Francona said. “I said, ‘Damn it, Gomesy, you can’t come into a game with mustard on your jersey, what are you doing?’ He said, ‘Sorry, Skip, when they opened the bullpen gate for me to go in, a bunch of fans threw hot dogs at me.'”
Years later, telling that story, Francona paused and said, “And we were at home!“
Francona’s sense of humor and his ability to connect with people, and the game, came from his late father, Tito, whom he worshiped. Tito, a left-handed-hitting outfielder/first baseman, was a career .272 hitter in 15 major league seasons with nine teams. When Terry Francona was 10 years old, his dad took him on a 10-day road trip, during which he hung out with the players, worked out on the fields, rode the planes and buses.
“Those were the greatest 10 days of my life,” Terry Francona said, “because I was with my dad.”
The funniest, most educational and most entertaining 10 days of my work life was the spring training tour of camps that I took with Francona in Florida in 2012: that famed Fort Wilderness trip. It was then that I learned so much more about Francona, including that he is exceedingly punctual: If you tell him that we will meet in the hotel lobby at 6:45 p.m. for dinner, it’s guaranteed that he will be waiting for you at 6:35. We went out to dinner five nights in a row; he paid the first four nights, against my wishes. The fifth night, I made sure that the waiter gave the bill to me. Francona wasn’t pleased.
“I always pay for dinner,” he said. “I have to. It’s what I do.”
One day that spring, he had to do a TV report for ESPN on the Yankees, a team he had just engaged in epic battles for the previous eight years.
“I forgot my suit,” Tito said, “so I had to go to Today’s Man to buy a suit. It cost $89. And it was a pinstripe suit! When the day was over, I just threw it in the trash can.”
During another conversation over that stretch, I told him that I have a dog named Tito.
“I bet he poops all over the house,” Tito, the analyst, said.
Which, of course, he does.
Yet another day, Francona and I visited the Blue Jays camp. Pitcher Ricky Romero approached us and told us that Toronto catcher J.P. Arencibia did a Tim Kurkjian impersonation. All 60 Blue Jays players gathered around Arencibia, Francona and me as he impersonated me. It was awful; it was hilarious. Francona, ever mischievous, decided to ambush me on the air. He secretly taped an interview with Arencibia, who was pretending to be me. When [Karl] Ravech, Francona and I did our Blue Jays report on the air that night, the taped interview with Arencibia was dropped in the broadcast to my surprise — and my horror. It was so bad, it was funny.
“I can’t do this anymore,” Francona said on the air. “I’m laughing too hard!”
I once asked him about his health.
“Remember,” he warned, “you asked.”
Francona could always play baseball. During his junior year in high school in Pennsylvania, Francona hit .769; he made nine outs all season. In 1980, at the University of Arizona, he won the Golden Spikes Award, given to the best college baseball player in the country. His major league career included a promising start; he batted .321 as a part-time player with Montreal in 1982. Then the injuries started.
That day I asked, Francona detailed countless surgeries which had led to all sorts of ailments, including blood flow issues. His body, and all the injuries, cut his playing career short. For the past 10 to 15 years, if he doesn’t get in the pool early in the morning to swim, to get the blood moving, his body might lock up by midafternoon, making it virtually impossible to move, or to manage. That, more than anything, is why he is planning to retire. His body, now 64 years old, simply can’t take the rigors of managing.
To me, he detailed his final game. He did so without anger or regret.
“I was in spring training with the Brewers [in 1992],” he said. “My body was falling apart, but they told me that I would make the team if I swung the bat well in our final exhibition game. I drove in eight runs. The final swing I took, I hit a grand slam. I could barely run around the bases, my kneecap was broken. They called me in after the game and told me they were releasing me. They sent me home, but they didn’t even send me back to Tucson. They sent me to Phoenix. I had to get from there to my house in Tucson. I swore then if I ever managed, I would handle the release of a player properly. And I’d make sure he got home.”
It is that sort of warmth and care that have made Francona a Hall of Fame manager — that and his wonderful sense of humor. And in retirement, that’s how I will remember Francona. Not for the nearly 2,000 wins, or the two world championships in Boston, and nearly a third in Cleveland, but for his laugh and the way he treated people — not just his players or his bosses. He still knows the names of production assistants from one year at ESPN 12 years ago.
My final fond memory of Francona will be the scooter that he drove around Cleveland as the Guardians’ manager. He lived so close to Progressive Field, he didn’t need a car. So, he bought a scooter. For a TV piece I did on him, I rode around the inside of the stadium on the back of his scooter, like Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne, just without the frozen snot.
Tito looked the camera and said, “Now this really is ‘Dumb and Dumber.'”
Typical Tito. The best story, the best line, the perfect timing, and always finishing with a laugh.
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Ryan S. Clark, NHL reporter
Matt Duchene‘s heroics Friday put his current team in the Western Conference finals at the expense of the team that drafted him more than a decade ago.
An unmarked Duchene flicked his wrists, and in less than a second scored the winning goal that sent the Dallas Stars to a 2-1 double-overtime win in Game 6 against the Colorado Avalanche to close out their semifinal series.
“Those guys mucked hard at the end, and it just popped out to me,” Duchene told Turner Sports after the game. “I put it in and then blacked out pretty much. I was so tired, I started skating and I got tired, and I don’t even know what I did after that. I was pretty pumped up.”
Duchene’s goal and the events that led to it came with several moving parts.
Most notably, it sends the Stars back to the Western Conference final for a second straight season and for the third time in the past five years. They will face either the Vancouver Canucks or the Edmonton Oilers. The Canucks have a 3-2 series lead and could end the series Saturday in Edmonton, or the Oilers could force a Game 7 set for Monday in Vancouver.
In last season’s conference final, the Stars lost in six games to the eventual champions, the Vegas Golden Knights.
The goal also came after some controversy in the first extra period, when Duchene was involved in a Mason Marchment goal that was called back because of goaltender interference.
With 7:29 remaining in the first overtime, Duchene was battling with Avalanche defenseman Cale Makar for position in front of Avs goaltender Alexandar Georgiev. Marchment fired a shot on net that beat Georgiev. However, the goal was reviewed, with Duchene appearing to have impeded Georgiev in the crease while contacting Makar.
The NHL Situation Room, which is charged with reviewing goals, determined that Duchene impaired Georgiev’s “ability to play his position in the crease prior to the puck entering the Colorado net.” The ruling was made in accordance with Rule 69.1, which states that “an attacking player, either by his positioning or by contact, impairs the goalkeeper’s ability to move freely within his crease or defend his goal.”
“Duchy’s ass was over the line,” Marchment told reporters after the game. “His feet were outside, but his ass was over the line. So that’s the explanation I got.”
Duchene opened the second overtime with a chance to win it early. Stars defenseman Esa Lindell recovered the puck near the Stars’ bench and played a pass through the seam that allowed Duchene to get the edge and skate toward the net. Duchene got a breakaway before Avs defenseman Josh Manson lunged forward and used his stick to disrupt Duchene’s stick, which saw his offering reach the net but get stopped by Georgiev’s right leg pad.
Duchene’s series-ending goal came soon after.
“You can imagine how we felt on the no-goal call,” Duchene told Turner Sports. “Then the breakaway, I felt like I had a really good chance to score there. Obviously, it was a slash, but it got me on the stick, so it was a legal play.”
Duchene’s winning goal eliminated the club that drafted him with the No. 3 pick in 2009. Since he requested a trade in 2017, the Avs won the Stanley Cup in 2022 while Duchene played in three markets before signing a one-year deal with the Stars last offseason.
Duchene was part of a youth movement in Colorado that was built around promising stars such as Gabriel Landeskog, Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen but had gone through a challenging 2016-17 season that saw them finish with 48 points. At the time, that was the fewest points in the salary-cap era.
Finishing with the worst record in the league led to the Avs getting the No. 4 pick and drafting future Norris Trophy winner Makar. Months after they drafted Makar, Duchene requested a trade.
A childhood Avalanche fan, he was traded to the Ottawa Senators as part of a three-team trade that saw the Avs receive defenseman Samuel Girard along with draft picks that later became Bowen Byram and Justus Annunen.
It was a trade that would help the Avalanche strengthen a foundation that eventually saw them win the third Cup in franchise history back in 2022.
“I have a lot of fond memories of being an Avs and they were my favorite team growing up,” Duchene told TNT. “It was an absolute honor to be here, and it was one of the hardest things I had to do was to ask out. We were just at a crossroads, and they turned it around really quick, and I was happy for them when they won.”
Duchene lasted a season and a half in Ottawa before he was traded to the Columbus Blue Jackets. He helped the Jackets reached the playoffs that year before signing a seven-year contract with the Nashville Predators worth $8 million annually.
His time with the Predators was mixed. In 2021-22, he scored a career-high 43 goals and 86 points in 78 games. The following season saw him fall 30 points shy of 86 points while playing in seven fewer games.
A front-office shift led to the Predators making changes with one of those adjustments coming in the form of buying out Duchene. It made him a free agent and someone the Stars signed to a one-year deal worth $3 million.
With the Stars this season, Duchene reached the 20-goal mark for the 11th time in his career while hitting the 60-point plateau for the fourth time.
“God had a plan for me, and I’m just living out that plan,” Duchene told TNT. “It’s kind of fitting I guess that things went the way they did last night in a barn and in a place that meant a lot to me. … I’ve nothing but fond memories as an Av and nothing but good feelings toward them.”
BOSTON — Florida Panthers coach Paul Maurice considered it a good omen when the fire alarm went off at the team hotel Friday afternoon, just as he was settling in for a pregame nap.
“In my career, the number of times that something got messed up at the hotel … it’s like a guaranteed win,” Maurice said after a 2-1 victory over Boston earned the Panthers a spot in the Eastern Conference finals. “I said, ‘If this holds true, I guarantee we’re winning today.'”
Maurice’s superstition held true a few hours later when defenseman Gustav Forsling scored the tiebreaking goal with 1:33 left, and Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 22 shots to help the Panthers beat the Bruins 2-1 and clinch their second-round playoff series in six games.
A year after playing for the Stanley Cup, the Panthers will meet the New York Rangers in the Eastern Conference finals. Maurice might have been deprived of a nap Friday, but his team has five days to prepare for Game 1 against the Rangers on Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden.
“I’m not doing that. I’m not doing anything with that,” he said. “I need a day off.”
Anton Lundell scored for the Panthers and also set up the game winner when his shot was deflected to the left side of the net. Forsling came in and beat Jeremy Swayman on the short side.
“I didn’t see it go in,” said Forsling, who scored 10 goals this season — one of them a game winner. “I just saw someone else react. It was amazing. I’m not usually the guy who scores the game-winning goal; I’m out there trying to defend. It’s nice to help your team win, but I’ll stick to defense.”
Florida won all three games in Boston this series and has taken six straight playoff games at the TD Garden. The Panthers also knocked the record-setting Bruins out of the playoffs last year on their way to the Stanley Cup Final, where they lost to the Vegas Golden Knights.
“They had had such a big year last year,” Maurice said. “This series felt way different than last year’s. I think we’re a much better team than we were last year when we came in here.”
Swayman stopped 26 shots for the Bruins. Pavel Zacha scored to give Boston a 1-0 lead late in the first period, but it was unable to beat Bobrovsky again. In the series, the Panthers outshot the Bruins 198-135.
“You can’t win every game 2-1,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said. “Their goalie was good, and we didn’t beat him.”
“In my career, the number of times that something got messed up at the hotel … it’s like a guaranteed win. I said, ‘If this holds true, I guarantee we’re winning today.'”
Panthers coach Paul Maurice
The Bruins got captain Brad Marchand back after he missed two games with an injury believed to be a concussion. The longest-tenured member of the roster got a big ovation at introductions; Montgomery said it helped propel Boston to a better start than in previous games, when it spotted the Panthers to a lopsided shooting advantage early.
“That ovation at the beginning of the game says it all,” he said. “I thought it was going to be our night before the game. I thought our players were loose and confident. They went out and played that way.”
Boston took the lead with a minute left in the first period when Jake DeBrusk made a no-look backhanded pass to Zacha to send him on a breakaway. Brandon Carlo also helped by flattening Carter Verhaeghe at the blue line to keep him from pursuing the puck.
But Florida tied it with seven minutes left in the second, after a scramble in front of the Boston net that left DeBrusk on the ice. Lundell swooped into the slot and swept the puck past Swayman.
The Bruins were called for having too many men on the ice for a record seventh time this postseason. The bench minor early in the second period did not result in a goal for the Panthers.
Sports
Stars win the race to the Western Conference finals: Keys to their rise, outlook for next matchup
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Ryan S. Clark, NHL reporter
The Dallas Stars outlasted the Colorado Avalanche in double overtime to advance to the Western Conference finals.
Next up for Dallas will be the winner of the Vancouver Canucks–Edmonton Oilers series, which Vancouver leads 3-2.
Here’s a look at how the Stars got here and how they match up against either Vancouver or Edmonton.
Going farm-to-table has allowed the Stars to eat this postseason
Executives are always discussing the importance of trying to build a team through the draft and develop the sort of talent that can someday carry a franchise. The Stars have done just that recently, and this postseason has shown the value of taking such an approach.
Exactly how beneficial has the Stars’ model been? Eleven of the 21 players who’ve played at least four games for the club were drafted by the Stars. That’s tied with the Bruins for the most homegrown players to play at least one playoff game this postseason Their three top point leaders this postseason are homegrown talents — Miro Heiskanen, Wyatt Johnston and Jason Robertson — while four of their top five scorers were drafted by the club.
The same goes for the three players — Heiskanen, Thomas Harley and Esa Lindell — who lead them in average ice time. In fact, five of the six players who led the Stars in ice time during this playoff run were all drafted by the team — the lone exception being trade deadline acquisition Chris Tanev, who is fourth in minutes per game.
And then there’s goaltender Jake Oettinger whose performances have seen him post a 2.27 goals-against average and a .914 save percentage this postseason. Yes, there are key contributors who came over via free agency and trade, but this is a notably homegrown crew.
The young star who keeps burning bright
When Johnston scored 24 goals and 41 points as a rookie last season, it created the belief that the Stars might have something special. What Johnston has done throughout the 2023-24 season has further cemented that notion.
He broke out for 32 goals and 65 points in the regular season while averaging 17 minutes per game and playing all 82 of them. Then came the Stanley Cup playoffs, which has allowed Johnston to take an even bigger role as the Stars have now reached the Western Conference finals for a second straight season.
Johnston has paced the Stars with a team-high seven goals, while his 11 points are third on the team. His 20:10 of average ice time is top among Stars forwards and fifth on the team overall. In fact, he was the only Stars forward who averaged more than 20 minutes per game in the playoffs, with the next closest being Robertson at 19:05.
0:51
Wyatt Johnston finds the back of the net for a second time
Wyatt Johnston notches his second goal of the night to add to the Stars’ lead over the Avalanche.
Even when they’ve lost, they’ve still made gains
Enough is in place to suggest the Stars have had arguably the hardest route of any team that will reach the conference final round this season.
It started when they beat the defending Stanley Cup champion Vegas Golden Knights in the first round before beating the 2022 champions Avalanche in Round 2. Facing the two most recent Cup champions allowed the Stars to showcase their ability to come back in the series. They initially opened the first round in an 0-2 series hole against the Golden Knights only to come back and win four of the next five games. Keep in mind, the Stars had lost their past six against the Golden Knights and nine of the past 11 prior to beating them in Game 3.
As for the Avalanche, the Stars watched a three-goal lead in Game 1 disappear and the Avs win in overtime. Since then, the Stars fended off a late Avs push to win Game 2, remaining patient during what was an offensive barrage in Game 3 before orchestrating one of their strongest offensive performances in Game 4. And after a loss in Game 5 to potentially close things out early, they rallied to seal the deal in Game 6.
This shows the strength of Dallas’ system, and its faith in it even when game results don’t go its way.
A not-so-false sense of security
Let’s just say that another hallmark of the Stars’ success is their ability to play the proverbial possum.
Perhaps the most bizarre detail about this iteration of the Stars’ ascension is their Game 1 struggles. Not only did they lose their respective Game 1s to the Golden Knights and Avalanche, but the Stars have lost six straight Game 1s as a whole. That said, they’ve won three of their past four series despite getting off to a slow start.
And if that’s not enough, how about having Peter DeBoer behind the bench, who is now 8-0 all time in Game 7, tied with Darryl Sutter for the most Game 7 wins by a coach in NHL history?
Regular season record vs. EDM: 2-0-1
Anyone that’s ever wanted to watch a penalty kill’s hopes and dreams die just needs to watch the Oilers’ power play this postseason. They lead the playoffs with a 46.7% success rate. Possessing one of the NHL’s most formidable power plays is one of the reasons why the Oilers are within striking distance of a second conference finals appearance in three years. Short-circuiting that power play is critical if this is the matchup for Dallas.
There is the possibility that the Stars could have solutions for how to deal with the Oilers on the extra-skater advantage. The first step in that plan is something that has served the Stars well this postseason: They don’t take many penalties. Entering Game 6, the Stars were the least-penalized squad of any team that made it to the second round, with just 66 penalty minutes. The next closest team was the Avalanche at 79 minutes.
On the whole, the Stars’ penalty kill is operating at 72.0%, which is worst among active teams. But what could help them against the Oilers is if they could find a way to replicate the success they had against the Avalanche’s power play going into Game 5. The Avs’ power play operated at a 37.5% success rate in the first round against the Winnipeg Jets. Game 1 saw the Avs score two power-play goals in their dramatic 4-3 overtime comeback victory. But then they had a stretch with no goals in eight power-play opportunities against the Stars.
And of course, having a goalie of Oettinger’s caliber helps out any penalty kill.
Regular season record vs. VAN: 2-1-0
The Stars are averaging exactly 3.00 goals per game while the Canucks are averaging 2.73 per game, the second fewest of the teams that are still in the playoffs. Those figures help reinforce the idea that the team that can either be the first to score three goals or the one who can consistently score three goals could have the edge.
Here’s why. Finding and continuing to trust the connection between their five-player defensive structure and goaltenders are how the Canucks and Stars have found success this postseason. Of the teams that were still alive heading into Friday night, the Stars have allowed the second-fewest goals per game (2.50) while the Canucks gave up the third-fewest (2.55).
And the other detail to consider is that both teams are quite comfortable with playing in tight contests. The Stars are 4-2 in this postseason in one-goal games, though their Games 2, 3 and 4 wins against the Avalanche saw them win by an average margin of three goals. As for the Canucks, all but two of their playoff games have been decided by a single goal, both of which came in the first two contests of their series against the Nashville Predators.
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