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Pills, Booze, And Fried Chicken: Inside The Red Sox’ Monumental Collapse

The Boston Red Sox collapsed last month, and it will be impossible to ever come up with all the underlying factors why. Unfortunately, “the team just didn’t play good baseball” isn’t a satisfying explanation, and when a team blows a surefire playoff spot in such spectacular fashion, changes will be made. And major change has already hit the Red Sox. Manager Terry Francona, who led the franchise to its greatest success in generations, is gone. This morning, news broke that general manger Theo Epstein, who built the roster that led to that great success, is likely about to follow Francona out the door.

RELATED: When the Sox’ choke was complete, Boston media outlets had a field day.

Something else from this morning: this story from the Boston Globe’s Bob Hohler, which attempts to deconstruct the Red Sox’ dreadful finish – and in the process, shows just how difficult it is to do so. So many reports of a lack of team unity, a lack of leadership…and so little that directly contributes to wins and losses. Did the lack of togetherness and dedication hurt the Red Sox? Definitely. This is especially telling:

[Starters Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, and John Lackey] joined a number of teammates in cutting back on their exercise regimens despite appeals from the team’s strength and conditioning coach Dave Page.

And oh yeah – they also participated in this apparent attempt to prove every negative stereotype about country music correct:

But there’s more to it than that. There’s more to it than eating, drinking beer, and playing video games in the clubhouse, as those pitchers also did. Francona expressed frustration at not being able to reach his team the way he wanted, and some speculated that personal problems might have gotten in the way of the manager doing his job – Francona lived in a hotel this year due to marital issues, and at one point he saw a doctor to make sure the way he was taking painkillers didn’t constitute abuse (the doctor said it didn’t).

RELATED: Boston’s collapse wasn’t miserable for everyone, however.

But there’s more to it than that, too – as Francona was quoted as saying in the story, despite whatever else was happening in his life, “I worked harder and spent more time at the ballpark this year than I ever did.” And we’re willing to bet that prominent people on the teams that did make the playoffs this year were dealing with personal issues themselves. We don’t doubt Francona was focused on baseball. Besides, like he also says: “You never heard any of these complaints when we were going 80-41,” as the Sox did in the middle of the season.

That, of course, is the toughest part of all of this. For the majority of this season, the Sox looked almost unstoppable. Win just a couple more games – collapse only slightly less badly – and all these questions are never asked. Hohler probably comes closest to nailing it when he says that “[b]y all accounts, the 2011 Sox perished from a rash of relatively small indignities.” When that’s the case, it’s tough to say exactly what went wrong.

Some of the potential reasons Hohler cites were probably contributing factors. Some probably had nothing at all to do with the Sox’ struggles. And for a team talented enough that it started 2-10, gagged away the entire month of September, and still won 90 games, such struggling isn’t acceptable, even if it’s impossible to pinpoint why it happened. For whatever reason, the Red Sox played terrible baseball when even bad baseball would have landed them in the playoffs. When that happens, changes must be made – and now, the Red Sox better hope the changes they made were the right ones. Because until the 2012 season comes around, just like the reason for this year’s September swoon, nobody knows for sure.

Getty photo (by Greg Fiume)