http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/red-sox/post/_/id/14744/schill-lack-of-player-discipline-not-on-tito
ESPN Boston baseball analyst Curt Schilling was on ESPN Boston Radio with
Adam Jones on Friday afternoon (listen to the interview HERE) and, in no
uncertain terms, said he thought it was a shame that the failure of the
players ultimately cost Terry Francona his job.
“You can’t make these players do what they need to do if they’re not going
to do it themselves,” Schilling said. "He put the names on the lineup card,
but it’s up to the players to execute.”
Schilling and Francona go way back. Not only was Schilling on Francona’s Red
Sox teams from 2004-07, he was also on the Phillies team that got Francona
fired in 1999.
"It was very personal, a very distressing thing for me to be a part of when
you are part of a team that costs someone his job, especially if it's someone
you respect and love and like and is a close friend,” Schilling said. "It's
a horrible feeling. But there are a lot of players that don't care, and, in
that (Red Sox) clubhouse, based on everything that those guys have said,
there's probably a couple of guys in that clubhouse, which is pathetic and
sad in and of itself."
Schilling discussed reports that have surfaced recently about the bad
chemistry and lack of discipline that were present in this Red Sox clubhouse,
saying those were more a reflection of a lack of leadership among the players
than any fault of Francona.
"In past years, you always had a personality in that clubhouse who would make
it very clear whose fault it was. It doesn't generally get to this stage when
you've got players in the clubhouse that can handle this stuff themselves,”
Schilling said. "(Francona) was always a guy who had a team comprised of
players that ran the spectrum, but he always had personalities to help him
manage the clubhouse. Every manager has to.
“The days of the manager running through the clubhouse and turning stuff
over and fearing guys into performing is gone in baseball. It's been gone for
a long time. The smarter managers understood it before a lot of the other
managers did: You need players that will police themselves and police each
other. We always had that here.
“It's very clear, when you look around this team, you've got some guys