Francona sits in personalized captain's chair for (possible) final time
Anthony Castrovince
@castrovinceCLEVELAND -- It sits on a metal pedestal, mounted to the first of the four steps that lead from the Guardians¡¯ home dugout to the field. For the majority of Terry Francona¡¯s 11 seasons as Cleveland¡¯s manager, this padded seat covered in fade-resistant vinyl has been his captain¡¯s chair.
The above might sound like suggestive skipper speak. But no, quite literally, Francona¡¯s seat, which he has possibly occupied one final time for his final home game as Guardians manager in a 4-3 win against the Reds on Wednesday night, is one more commonly constructed for captains.
¡°That¡¯s a bass boat chair,¡± head groundskeeper Brandon Koehnke said.
Tito has his spot atop the managerial wins tally in the team record book. In all likelihood, he¡¯ll have a plaque in the team Hall of Fame at Heritage Park to go with his probable one in Cooperstown. And of course, there¡¯s his famous scooter, which, until it was recently stolen and vandalized (not exactly a sentimental send-off), was his method of transportation to and from Progressive Field.
But the swivel seat from which Francona supervised this squad is arguably the best representation of his fun and franchise-altering time in Cleveland. Because it provides us with two elemental insights about Tito -- the physical difficulty he endured in doing this job, and the security he earned and enjoyed in a job where most men are hired to be fired.
The Guardians have had to replace Francona¡¯s seat a few times when it succumbed to wear and tear. But Tito himself -- physical ailments and all -- proved built to last. He¡¯s the longest-tenured active skipper in the sport, and his time in Cleveland is now three years longer than his legacy-building run with the Red Sox.
¡°People here have been so good to me,¡± Francona said. ¡°Every time I¡¯m like, ¡®Oh I wish we could do this,¡¯ they¡¯re like, ¡®Well, we¡¯ll do this.¡¯ You kind of hate to ask, but they just do stuff for you. People are just nice here. It¡¯s Cleveland, people are nice.¡±
That¡¯s how the chair came about.
First, Francona -- beset by blood flow, knee, hip, foot and who-knows-how-many-other ailments -- made mention of how hard it was to stand near the dugout steps for three-hour games.
¡°We got him that cushy pad [that sits in front of the steps],¡± Koehnke said.
Still frustrated by the physical difficulty, Francona asked the club staff if there might be a way to get him something to sit on during games.
¡°I put two and two together,¡± Koehnke said. ¡°A gentleman that does some work for me here in the ballpark, when I need some welding or miscellaneous metal kind of work, he and I put our heads together and came up with the bass boat chair.
"And then he mounted a bracket into the concrete for me. We got the bass boat chair and stuck it on there, and I don¡¯t want to say the rest is history, but it¡¯s worked out great for him.¡±
Over the course of his tenure with the team, Francona has had to delegate batting practice responsibilities to his coaching staff so that he can stay off his feet in his office. The chair eased the in-game burden to allow Tito to do a job that, by any objective measure, he did well. In his 11 seasons in Cleveland, the team¡¯s .549 winning percentage has trailed only the .613 mark by the Dodgers and the .560 mark by the Yankees -- two of the perpetual best teams in MLB.
¡°I think you¡¯re going to look back on this period in this franchise¡¯s history and how well he did,¡± former Cleveland closer Cody Allen said. ¡°I mean.. he inherited a club that lost like 95 games [94, to be exact], and then, the next year, we¡¯re in the playoffs. It¡¯s going to be one of the better windows of time for this franchise, which has been around a long time.¡±
Along the way, Francona¡¯s ¡°negotiations¡± with the front office about contract extensions became something of an inside joke. Francona didn¡¯t need to bring an agent to the proceedings. He knew where he wanted to be, and team president Chris Antonetti and general manager Mike Chernoff knew they wanted him to be here for as long as he was willing. It was a refreshingly friendly -- even familial -- relationship in a cutthroat industry.
That relationship extended elsewhere in the organization. You¡¯ve heard the stories about Francona waking up with ice cream or pizza all over his chest, having dozed off during late-night snacking. These stories are not exaggerated. If anything, Francona¡¯s messiness away from the ballpark is minimized.
Let¡¯s just say it¡¯s not exactly standard operating procedure in MLB for a clubhouse attendant to be assigned to the skipper¡¯s apartment to help him handle fairly basic tasks. Francona is so focused on the work he does and the hours he spends at the yard that the tidiness of his own home is not even a secondary concern. He¡¯s a dynamo at the ballpark, a disaster away from it.
¡°If he were any other manager living like that, you¡¯d be like, ¡®What the hell is wrong with this guy?¡¯¡± said a Cleveland clubbie who has filled the helper role. ¡°But with him, you get it, and you see how hard he works here.¡±
So this has been a productive pairing. Francona has been a successful steward of the squad (or captain of the ship, if you will), and the squad has taken pretty good care of him, too.
The chair is evidence.
¡°Maybe the next guy will want it,¡± Tito joked.