Boston Red Sox starting to lose all control

Perhaps the epic collapse of the Boston Red Sox and the resulting fury in Red Sox Nation has simply taken too much of a toll on owner John Henry. Whatever the reason, he made some ill-advised comments that are certainly going to make the job of getting his team back on track a lot more difficult.

During a radio interview, Henry said he did not want to sign Carl Crawford last offseason in what was an obvious attempt to cast the blame for Crawford’s lucrative seven-year, $142 million contract on departing general manager Theo Epstein, who has been taking a lot of heat in Boston for that and other bad long-term deals. While it is understandable that Henry would want to shift the blame for that signing on a guy who is leaving Boston, it is simply unwise for any owner to publicly criticize a player or even hint that the player was unwanted. I can’t want to hear Crawford’s reaction, but I can only imagine that he is furious over being a pawn in this game between the owner and departing general manager.

Certainly the New York Yankees have their own problems, but nowhere near the level of dysfunction of their archrivals. Back in the reign of King George Steinbrenner, it was not unusual to see the Boss take to the media to complain about a player in an attempt to motivate him. While it made for great copy for the city’s tabloids, it also led to a lot of unnecessary clubhouse dysfunction that thankfully doesn’t exist anymore for the Yankees.

I criticized Fred Wilpon for comments the Mets owner made about Jose Reyes and David Wright in a magazine article a few months ago. Wilpon took a lot of heat for those comments, even though he was right, but it is bad form for an owner to go to the media to talk how his player is not a superstar or unworthy of Carl Crawford money or that he didn’t really want that player.

So the Red Sox first lost control in the clubhouse, according to this extensive dissection of the collapse, which led them to lose the wild card race. Now they seem to be losing control at the highest tiers of the organization, which does not bode well for their ability to fix the problems. Red Sox Nation looks to be in for a very long year in 2012 and maybe even beyond.

Thanks to Webjedi via Wikipedia for the John Henry photo.