Projo Sox Blog

Twenty years ago, and even ten years ago, Dustin Pedroia might not have been allowed to leave the team to tend to his ailing wife, as he did Monday.

The culture in baseball probably wouldn't have supported it, manager Terry Francona mused when thinking back on his days as a child growing up with a major league father, and then as a major league player himself through the 1980s. Things certainly have changed.

"I know that for a fact. - It never really made sense to me. When I was born, my dad didn't get to see me for a couple weeks because that was their next off day. When I was playing, I missed one of my kid's birth's. My wife's still mad at me. It's 22 years later. That's just how it was," Francona said.

As time has gone on, and organizations have taken better care of their players in general -- perhaps reflecting their higher pay and the larger investments teams have made in them -- the culture of strictness and indifference to the world outside the diamond has been largely torn down.

Francona started to truly grasp that players needed a manager who would help them out a little in life when he was managing in the minor leagues in the early 1990s.

"When you become a minor league manager you feel a little differently about what those kids are going through," Francona said.

He recalled a Double-A player named Luis Andujar, who needed help getting his first car. Francona walked him through the process -- and then some.

"We got him a used car. It broke down that very day," Francona chuckled. "I was the guy who helped him get his first car, and then I was the guy who picked him up when his first car didn't work."

Pedroia said that kind of understanding contributes to making the Red Sox a quality team on the field as well as off.

"[Francona's] the best. The Red Sox organization, Theo texted me late last night. My whole team, that's why we're a great team because we care about each other."

 Tags  Boston Red Sox Dan Barbarisi Dustin Pedroia Terry Francona

---