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Ben Cherington

October 26, 2011 by · Comments Off on Ben Cherington 

Ben Cherington, The last time a new hire Red Sox received a standing ovation from his colleagues was the spring of 2002 when the club at City of Palms Park in Fort Myers, Florida, erupted in cheers as Grady Little was announced as new coach team.

The last time the day before yesterday, that is, when tens of Sox front-office employees broke into applause at Fenway Park Hall State of the street as Ben Cherington was officially introduced as the new general manager of Boston.

What Grady Little did not work too well, but you never know what will happen when someone takes over again and sometimes the surprises are pleasant.

Joe Morgan is supposed to manage the Red Sox just for a weekend when he replaced John McNamara in July 1988, Terry Francona, widely thought as Philadelphia, the former Village Idiot in 2004, Harry Truman was a retailer tie without success, among other things, when Franklin Roosevelt did as president of U.S. in 1945, and the College of Cardinals thought they plump old Angelo Roncalli was not much more than welcome Wal-Mart before becoming Pope most radical of the millennium in 1958.

The quiet and serious Cherington is not very different from the behavior Theo Epstein, but yesterday I made a point of telling the crowd at Fenway who do not play guitar, nor does it have a gorilla suit.

Otherwise, there may not be hard to distinguish, at least on the surface.

Cherington, however, has taken a more traditional route to the office of GM to Epstein, is the first “homegrown” Boston general manager has had since former player and assistant general manager Haywood Sullivan bought part team in 1978.

Cherington, 37, grew up near Lebanon, NH, and was a Red Sox fan who went on to play baseball at Amherst College and went into professional baseball as a scout with the Indians in 1998.

Dan Duquette, another Jeff Lord, Cherington hired as a scout in 1999 and has held various positions in the Red Sox organization since then, including acting as co-GM Jed Hoyer for six weeks of Epstein pause in the winter of 2005 – 06.

Recruitment Cherington was team president Larry Lucchino said, mostly by acclamation. Epstein recommended and the triumvirate of ownership – Lucchino, John Henry and Tom Werner – all had worked closely with him since he bought the franchise in 2002.

The move is the clearest sign that, despite their epic collapse in September, the Red Sox are not cleaning the house or carry out a purge of Michael Corleone.

“We have a lot of talent on this team,” Cherington said, “and we will be a very good team in 2012. What will work moving forward, not exactly what has worked in the past.”

The new chief said that players who were part of the September swoon are aware of how horrible it was, and how bad it reflects on them professionally, and his fans were disappointed.

And it will not let it happen again.

At least, those who will come back – and will not be around the world.

John Lackey, one of the men before the catastrophe of 2011, will not be back in 2012 because it will have Tommy John surgery, revealed Cherington, joining Rich Hill and Daisuke Matsuzaka in the unfortunate list.

Jonathan Papelbon and David Ortiz are Sox free agents and would like to come back, but at a reasonable price.

Carl Crawford? Cherington was one of the reviewers who thought that signing Crawford was a blast at the time, and he has not changed my mind.

The team will talk with Crawford during the winter, the new GM, he said, and try to figure out what went wrong in 2011 and what to do to return to form.

The search for a new director has begun and the Red Sox already have a short list. While Cherington not specify what names are on the list, said that Boston still has to get permission from other teams to talk to candidates, which means that some of them are currently working for someone else.

The Red Sox have a long history of hiring general managers who grew up in the area, starting with Dick O’Connell, who was the first GM of Boston have not played major league baseball and also was the GM who created the hysteria that has developed on what the team is today.

O’Connell hand, Duquette part of Epstein – Cherington has quietly put in your time working toward his lifelong dream of being a general manager. Your time has come, his signing was met with applause.

It will be among a minority fortunate if, when the day inevitably comes, his departure is not met the same way.

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