On the eve of his induction into the Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame Friday with Jason Varitek and Tim Wakefield , I continue to hear that Larry Lucchino did not willingly relinquish his role as the team’s president and chief executive officer but was pushed out.
Lucchino, 70 years old, was part of the John Henry group that bought the Red Sox in December 2001. An active hands-on executive, he was instrumental in the team’s unprecedented success. With Lucchino as head man, the Red Sox ended the franchise’s 86-year World Series championship drought and then won two more World Series for a total of three championships in 10 years.
Before moving to Boston with Henry and Tom Werner, Lucchino was the chief executive of the Baltimore Orioles and the San Diego Padres.
While in San Diego, he developed a future general manager in Theo Epstein, but in Boston they developed a contentious relationship, prompting Epstein to leave twice, returning after the first time but going to the Chicago Cubs the second.
Now Sam Kennedy has succeeded Lucchino, who was remarkably candid in a telephone interview Wednesday evening.
When I initially heard about Lucchino’s impending departure and couldn’t reach him, I called his brother Frank, a long-time Pittsburgh judge with whom I went to school. Frank denied that his brother was being forced out, saying he was retiring at the urging of his family.
“If he was retiring,” a person close to the Red Sox said Wednesday, “why is he running the Pawtucket Red Sox?”
Pawtucket is the Red Sox top minor league team, and Lucchino is in his second year as the team’s principal owner. His close, long-time colleague, Charles Steinberg, is with him as the club president while remaining a senior adviser to the president of the major league Red Sox.
Discussing his relationship with Henry, Boston’s principal owner, Lucchino said, “The last couple of years John and I talked about when I was going to step down. Part of it was they were ready to do a little more of the steering. Sam Kennedy was ready.”
“Left to my own devices I would have stayed longer, but it was probably time to go.”
Lucchino remains with the Red Sox as president and CEO emeritus, dividing his week between Boston and Pawtucket, where earlier this year he had to correct the idea the minor league team might move to Providence because of declining attendance and revenue. Pawtucket fans were irate that they might lose their team and let the owners know it. A contrite letter of apology followed.
In his various major league stops, Lucchino demonstrated a different kind of talent. He oversaw the construction of new parks, Camden Yards in Baltimore, which was the model for many new parks to come, and Petco Park in San Diego.
Then he supervised the modernization of ancient Fenway Park that added seats, including those on top of the Green Monster, and obviated the need for construction of a new park.
His selection for the Red Sox Hall of Fame stems from his baseball and ballpark efforts. It is not his first entry into a Hall of Fame. He is in the National Italian-American Sports Hall of Fame, the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame and the Taylor Allderdice High School Hall of Fame.
In the interest of full disclosure, I have to acknowledge that I am a fellow member of the Allderdice Hall of Fame. That was the high school we both attended.
Lucchino and I have another link. Lucchino is noted for having called the New York Yankees the Evil Empire after they beat the Red Sox to Jose Contreras, a defecting Cuban pitcher, in 2003. Lucchino coined the phrase in a telephone interview with me, and the name has stuck.
“One or both of us should have copyrighted it,” I said to Lucchino Wednesday.
“I was told the Yankees did so nobody else could,” Lucchino said. “Steinbrenner never got the joke.”