A review by djdrysdale
Francona: The Red Sox Years by Terry Francona

2.0

I don't know what I actually expected out of this. I'm a Red Sox fan and was a big supporter of Francona, and was disgusted by the way he was unceremoniously ousted after his tenure in Boston. I guess I hoped that this book would add some depth and context to what happened. Instead, the book was, well, pretty boring. It doesn't help that Shaughnessy's simply not a very good writer (and he quite obviously wrote this, though it is interspersed with passages of dialogue from Francona). But for the most part, it's a lot of standard summary of the last few years of Red Sox baseball, the likes of which you've probably read in many other places (or lived through) if you've followed the team. The book does suggest that the seeds of what transpired between Francona, Epstein, and the ownership at the end of 2011 were planted a bit longer ago than some might have believed, but beyond that there's not much in this book to make it worth the time and effort it took to read it. Even when things start to get interesting, there's nothing all that too salacious though one gets the impression Shaughnessy wishes it were. Overall, very underwhelming.