Terry Francona is now the former Red Sox manager. A short time ago, Tito spoke at Fenway, and said this is what he wanted.
"It was my decision. I don't know what I want to do. I know I want to stay in the game. This is all I've ever done, all I ever want to do," he said at a news conference at Fenway Park this evening.
"I think it's time for a new voice here," Francona said. "I think it's the right thing to do for the organization and itself."
But he didn't leave without some damning words.
"I don't want to ever forget, a month ago, we were on pace to win about a hundred games," he said. "When things started to go, I wanted desperately for our guys to care about each other on the field, I think I've referenced that a few times. I wasn't seeing that as much as I wanted to, and I tried ... what I thought I tried to help make that better, the coaches also, just wasn't ever comfortable.
"You've heard me say ... about going in one direction and getting through challenges, and meeting them together. I just didn't think we were doing that, and that's my responsibility, to get them to do that, and it wasn't happening to my satisfaction."
This team has too many high-priced, huge ego guys around that don't care enough about playing together and winning. I don't know who exactly the culprits may be, but we're going to start hearing about it soon. When the outgoing manager drops a bomb like that, you can bet your ass people are working their sources to find out who the bad guys are.
And once those names come out, they'd better get ready for a whole load of shit. We don't take too kindly to huge egos blowing our chances at another parade. The "run this guy out of town" machine will kick into high gear.
