Francona: The Red Sox Years Read Online Free Page B

waiting for him. If you wanted to talk hitting, Ted was your friend. The pitchers were the enemies, even the ones on Ted’s own team. Like most ballplayers of his era, Francona believed that Williams was the greatest hitter who ever lived, an opinion shared by the louder-than-life Boston batting champ. In the den of his New Brighton home, Tito Francona keeps a photo of his debut day meeting with Ted Williams.
    When the Senators were taking batting practice at County Stadium in 1970, Tito Francona took his son aside and pointed across the diamond toward the big man in the visitors’ dugout.
    That’s Ted Williams. Go introduce yourself.
    Young Terry didn’t need his dad taking him by the hand. Father knew best. It would make a better impression if the kid walked over there by himself.
    Wearing his ball cap and carrying his glove, 11-year-old Terry Francona walked across the field, behind the batting cage, and down the steps of the visitors’ dugout, where Williams was sitting.
    “Mr. Williams, I’m Mr. Francona’s son and he wanted me to come over and say hello.”
    Williams loved to make parents look good in front of their own kids and was impressed by the manners of Little Tito.
    “Well, you are a great-looking kid!” bellowed Williams. “And your dad is one helluva ballplayer. I just want to know one thing, young man. Can you hit?”
    “He was great to me,” Terry Francona remembered. “He took a minute and said hello and shook my hand. It meant a lot to my dad.”
    It was “bucket list” time in Tito Francona’s career. He knew these were his final days in the bigs, so—pushing his luck a little—he went to Bristol and asked if he could take his son on a ten-game road trip through Minnesota, Chicago, and Kansas City in early August. Bristol said okay.
    That was it. Birdie took Terry to buy a sport coat, combed the kid’s hair, and sent him on his way. Her 11-year-old son was going to live the big league life for a week and a half.
    “I had a ball,” Terry Francona said more than 40 years later. “I’d be in the hotel room with my dad and get up early and go down to that lobby while my dad slept. All the players and coaches were coming and going. If somebody needed a newspaper or a cup of coffee, I’d get it. To this day I love hotel lobbies. I love watching the people. I think it always reminds me of those first days on the road with my dad.”
    At the ballpark on the road, players would dress him in the smallest Brewer uniform they could find, then roll tape around him to tighten and tuck the billowing parts. Tito’s son was polite, respectful, and appreciative. He made it a point to talk to everyone, a quality that stayed with him throughout his baseball life.
Be nice to all the workers. Try to remember their names.
For an 11-year-old, he knew a remarkable number of people in ballparks across America.
    Tito wanted to shield his young son from some things about the baseball life. Late one night, long after a game in Kansas City, father and son were sitting in the middle of the dark Brewer bus when both became aware of some X-rated talk coming from the back of the Greyhound. The Brewers had won their game, and no doubt a few postgame beers were consumed. Everybody forgot there was an 11-year-old kid sitting toward the front of the bus. Trying to drown out the racy stuff coming from the back of the bus, Tito quickly shifted into protective dad overdrive, talking loud and steadily—about anything and everything. Twenty years later over Thanksgiving dinner, Tito related the story of the night he adroitly protected his son from the nasty conversation, and only then did Terry admit that he’d been listening to the ballplayers and had heard every word. He’d respected his dad’s effort, but he wasn’t going to miss the racy tales of the young ballplayers.
    “My dad rarely played that year, but I watched every game and got to make that trip. It was the best summer of my life.”
    “I’ll always