CLEVELAND, Ohio — Seated next to Cleveland’s president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti for a Zoom conference call with reporters Wednesday, manager Terry Francona insisted he wouldn’t have been there if he wasn’t planning on coming back next year.
Francona, 62, reiterated that his physical condition toward the end of July had deteriorated to the point that he was not able to perform his duties as manager in the way he expected of himself.
“To do this job correctly, you’ve got to be able to have two shoes, and I plan on having two shoes next year,” Francona said. “I really think that with the time I have this winter I’ll be able to be excited about showing up to spring training.”
Antonetti’s smile was noticeable sitting next to Francona as those words rolled off the manager’s lips. He said it was an “awesome feeling” to have Francona there as the club begins its offseason planning and looking forward to 2022.
“Tito has been such an incredible partner for all of us in baseball operations, and for (GM) Mike (Chernoff) and I as part of the leadership team,” Antonetti said. “To have him continue to lead us moving forward is a huge impact organizationally.”
Six weeks after having his left hip replaced, Francona went back in for surgery to repair damage to his toe that was infected in January. Doctors inserted eight pins and a metal rod. For comparison’s sake, Francona said the hip replacement was a piece of cake.
“The toe was a little stubborn,” Francona said. “It’s not something you necessarily want to look at before you go eat dinner.”
When Francona stepped away, the club was 50-49 and 8 1/2 games behind the White Sox in the AL Central Division. Five teams stood between them and the second AL wild card spot. He had just passed Mike Hargrove for second on the franchise’s all-time managerial wins list with 723. He was five behind Lou Boudreau for the top spot.
Cleveland went 30-33 in the season’s final two months under acting manager DeMarlo Hale to finish 80-82. Those 30 wins will officially count for Francona if he manages the team in 2022, putting him well ahead of Boudreau in the eyes of Elias Sports Bureau, the official major league stat keepers.
But Francona said he is pleased with the decision to step away when he did. Had he waited until the end of the season to go through with multiple surgeries, he might not be as optimistic about next season.
“I’m about halfway through the time I need to be on crutches,” Francona said. “It’s getting there. I’ll need the winter. But it’s getting there.”
Antonetti called the decision two-and-a-half months ago to have Francona step back a “really difficult one.”
“Now we’re starting to see the benefit of that, he’s had the surgeries, he’s now on a path to recovery and hopefully in a good place heading into the winter,” Antonetti said.
Francona was asked if it was hard to watch the team during the final two months while he recovered. He said things might have been a little more difficult to stomach if he thought there was any chance his physical condition would have allowed him to be there.
“But I came to the realization that it was time for me to step away for my own health,” Francona said.
There still is no ironclad guarantee Francona will be back. He has a doctor’s appointment next week that his orthopedist has indicated will be important. But barring anything unforeseen, Francona says he would really like to come back healthy for his 10th season in Cleveland.
“Healthy enough to embrace what the job entails and go through it with people that I enjoy and respect,” Francona said. “This year was hard. Whether it was getting to the dugout, or taking a pitcher out. It kind of wore me down. I felt like I wasn’t able to do my job appropriately.”
From his downtown Cleveland apartment, Francona said he could hear fireworks from Progressive Field every time something good had happened.
“I would know when somebody hit a home run about six seconds before they hit the home run (on TV),” Francona said. “I really enjoyed that. I’d hear the fireworks go off and I’d watch the next pitch with the delay and there it was.”
Francona also said he took immense pride in watching how Hale, pitching coach Carl Willis, bench coach Mike Sarbaugh and first base coach Sandy Alomar Jr. guided the team down the stretch.
“They carried on just like when I was here,” Francona said. “Really proud, not surprised, but I was really proud. And they kept the guys playing hard the entire way.”
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