It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town

From our Late to the Party desk

Wednesday’s Boston Globe op-ed page featured a piece by sports economist Andrew Zimbalist spanking former Red Sox manager Terry Francona for criticizing the Sox owners in his new book as being more interested in money than the game of baseball.

Zimbalist calls Francona’s narrative “as unconvincing, as it is, at points, nasty, petty, inaccurate, and unfair.” That’s not the only thing that’s unfair in this piece. Here’s how it starts:

Francona’s petty payback to Sox owners

IN “FRANCONA, the Red Sox Years,” Terry Francona, with the aid of Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy, has given us his version of his eight years in Boston. They were very successful years for the team — two World Series victories, six trips to the playoffs. Presumably, Francona should get at least some of the credit for this success, though it is not clear how much.

The problem for Francona is that it all ended with the September swoon in 2011 and many seem to blame him. Francona, after all, reportedly had a wild year — a marital separation, a painkiller problem, and then the incident reported by Bob Hohler in the Globe of Jon Lester, John Lackey, and Josh Beckett drinking beer, eating fried chicken, and playing video games in the clubhouse during games. The inevitable, and seemingly reasonable, inference was that Francona had lost control of the team.

Wait a second. As best the hardreading staff recalls, the Boston Herald’s John Tomase broke the beer-and-chicken story.

C’mon, Globies. Credit where credit’s due.