The word keeps coming back to me as I look for one word, or one idea, to sum up what I saw in Terry Francona's introductory press conference.
That word is trust.
What we are seeing with Francona's hiring as the 42nd manager in the history of the Cleveland Indians is a marriage built on trust. And hey, that's what they say about relationships and marriage, is it not? The good ones are built on a foundation of trust.
I can only hope that is the case here.
Let me be clear and go back to what I've gone back to every time this has come up, since Manny Acta was fired, to today. This team is not going anywhere, regardless of manager, without improvements made to the talent that is in this organization.
That being said, you have to feel good about the direction they could be headed with Francona at the helm. Not just because it is Terry Francona, a two-time World Series winner and someone who has been lauded as a "expert communicator", but because the hiring of Francona sort of represents that idea of change we've been angling towards.
I'll say this right off the bat, and apologize it if I've already said it in my first piece when the Indians announced that Francona would take the reigns of the squad. But by hiring Terry Francona to manage his ball club, Chris Antonetti has essentially put it all out there. Because guess what? If Francona doesn't turn this team around, then Antonetti has run out of excuses. If anything, hiring Francona is either the be-all-end-all for Antonetti and this Indians 'regime' as we know it, or it is the beginning of it's dynastic potential.
Did I throw out the word dynasty? No not really. But Francona had eight wonderful years in Boston and if the Indians can duplicate anything similar to, then, well I think we'll all be happy.
With this in mind, I watched every second of the Francona introductory presser and I have scribbles, I have notes, I have reactions and quick snaps of judgment. I'll try my best to intertwine them with only the best of the best out on the internet as you're normally accustomed too.
I'll be the first to admit that I was wrong. I thought that, as I probably put it more than several times, that Terry Francona was a pipe dream for the Cleveland Indians.
At least Chris Antonetti is polite. The Cleveland Indians general manager met with the media earlier in the week to give the typical GM mea culpea that usually follows a disaster of a season that resulted in someone other than the GM getting fired. Such is the state of affairs in Cleveland with the Indians where everything changes and yet remains remarkably the same.
There will no be postseason roar at the corner of Carnegie andOntariofor the 10th time in the last 11 years. It’s not even close to the worst stretch of baseball in franchise history, as the Indians missed the playoffs from 1921-1947 and 1955-1994. Of course, in 1920 and 1948, the Indians won the World Series and in 1954 and 1995, they appeared in the World Series. The occasional playoff appearance has done very little to improve fan morale and it may be at an all-time low as the Indians lost over 90 games for the third time in four years, something the franchise had never accomplished in 112 seasons.