The Boston Globe - 17.10.2019

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2019 The Boston Globe Sports C3

MaddontomanageAngels

JoeMaddonagreed to a three-year deal to become the Los Angeles

Angels’ manager on Wednesday, reuniting the World Series-winning for-

mer bench boss of the Chicago Cubs with the organization where he

spent the first three decades of his baseball career. Maddon replaces

BradAusmus, who was fired after one season when the Angels finished

72-90, their worst record since 1999. Maddon signed with the Angels as

an undrafted catcher in 1975, and he spent the next 31 seasons working

at almost every level of the organization as a player, coach, and manager.

He served as a big league assistant coach under five managers, and he

had two stints as the Angels’ interim manager. He was the Angels’ bench

coach alongside managerMikeSciosciaduring their championship sea-

son in 2002. Maddon left to manage Tampa Bay in 2006 for nine mostly

successful seasons, followed by a big-money move to Chicago to make

history.. .JoeGirardiquit as manager of the US baseball team trying to

qualify for the 2020 Olympics before it played a single game. Girardi said

he is leaving to pursue a major league managing job. There are seven

current openings.

GOLF

Walkerreceives58penaltystrokes

The rules have changed sinceLeeAnnWalkerlast played competitive

golf in 2008. She found out the hard way. Walker shot rounds of 85 and

74 at the Senior LPGA Championship at French Lick Resort in Indiana.

That was before she realized players no longer can putt when their cad-

dies have been standing directly behind them. She had to add 42 penalty

shots to her first round, turning that into a 127, and 16 more penalty

shots for the second round, turning that into a 90.HelenAlfredssoncap-

tured the title by three strokes to add to her US Senior Women’s Open

championship.

SOCCER

GilnamedMLSNewcomeroftheYear

After wrapping up the regular season with team-high totals of 10

goals and 14 assists, Revolution midfielderCarlesGilwas named MLS

Newcomer of the Year, an award that recognizes the best player with pre-

vious professional experience who made his MLS debut in 2019. The 26-

year-old Spaniard spent eight years as a professional with Valencia in

Spain’s La Liga, Aston Villa in the English Premier League, and Deporti-

vo La Coruna in La Liga, before joining the Revolution in February 2019.

MISCELLANY

Juniormiddleweightdiesofheadinjuries

Junior middleweightPatrickDaydied in a Chicago hospital four days

after sustaining head injuries in a fight withCharlesConwell. He was 27.

Day had brain surgery after being knocked out in the 10th round Satur-

day night. Knocked down twice earlier in the bout, he was taken from

the ring on a stretcher.. .RickyStenhouseJr. signed a multiyear deal to

drive for JTG Daugherty Racing, essentially completing a swap of drivers

with Roush Fenway Racing after that team announcedChrisBuescher

wouldn’t return next season... Three-time Olympic cyclistTaylorPhin-

neyis retiring from professional racing, ending a career that included 10

world championship medals and a stage win at the Giro d'Italia. Phinney

announced that he would ride for his team, EF Education First, for the

last time this weekend in Japan... Prize money in Alpine skiing is set to

reach new heights in the upcoming World Cup season as the winners of

the classic downhill and the slalom in Kitzbuehel, Austria, in January

will both receive 100,000 euros ($111,000), a record for a single race.

SportsLog

Sox can learn from their past

then-GM Theo Epstein walked away
from the Red Sox in a gorilla costume on
Halloween, the front office operated
over the next six weeks under the inter-
im leadership of another committee un-
til the appointment of Jed Hoyer and
Ben Cherington as co-GMs in mid-De-
cember, a prelude to Epstein’s official re-
turn in January 2006.
There are lessons — both promising
and cautionary — to take from that un-
settled period that seem relevant to the
current one.
“Any experience you go through pro-
fessionally helps you in future experi-
ences,” said O’Halloran, a baseball oper-
ations assistant in that interim period
after Epstein’s departure. “Of course, the
situations are very, very different, and
my role this time is different than it was
in 2005.
“But I guess what I came out of that
with is, one, you can make good deci-
sions and you can function well during a
period of transition with a multiheaded
monster at the top.”
That doesn’t mean doing so is easy,
and certainly little was easy about the
period that followed Epstein’s depar-
ture, one in which job responsibilities
were particularly messy. When Epstein
resigned — shortly after assistant GM
Josh Byrnes had been hired as Dia-
mondbacks GM — the Sox initially iden-
tified a group of four leaders to helm
their baseball operations: Cherington,
Hoyer, Craig Shipley, and Peter Wood-
fork.
But by mid-November, veteran exec-
utive Bill Lajoie, who had resigned with
Epstein, was rehired to join the Gang of
Four, which presumably became a Gang
of Five... at least until Woodfork left
later that month to become assistant
GM of the Diamondbacks.
Yet even then, it might have been
more like a Gang of Five or Six or Seven
or Eight, as several Red Sox officials —
including Lajoie, Hoyer, Cherington,
Shipley, Larry Lucchino, senior adviser
Jeremy Kapstein, and O’Halloran —
served as spokesmen for the organiza-
tion.
All the while, the Red Sox were con-
ducting interviews to replace Epstein,
with Lajoie (a former Tigers GM who re-
peatedly said that he did not want to be
considered a candidate) and Kapstein
(who started a campaign to serve as GM)

uSPEIER
Continued from Page C1

introducing those candidates in media

sessions.

“It was a strange time,” Cherington

once recalled. “Obviously, there was a bit

of a power vacuum, a leadership vacu-

um, some sort of vacuum.”

It was the sort of vacuum that created

(to borrow a phrase from presidential

elections past) a “giant sucking sound,”

and is remembered as something of a

circus among those who were there. The

structure and responsibilities tended to

be fluid. And the efforts to communicate

proved incredibly challenging.

Without a single leader through

whom all decisions and conversations

flowed, the group had to make a point of

communicating internally on a daily ba-

sis about everything that had gone on in

their orbit. Those developments subse-

quently had to be communicated up the

food chain to Lucchino and the team’s

owners.

“With four, it became very convolut-

ed and very inefficient,” said Hoyer, now

the GM of the Cubs. “I think everyone

was working to make the Red Sox better

and had the best intentions, but it’s very

difficult to make decisions trying to get

consensus among four people — and

frankly, it might have been more than

four. It might have been more like eight.”

Yet time and the baseball calendar

don’t stop in deference to job searches,

so while the Sox were trying to identify

Epstein’s replacement, they still had to

go about building for the future. In fact,

they made some important deals during

that time.

Over Thanksgiving, they built upon

conversations that Shipley started with

the Marlins at the GM Meetings in No-

vember, consummating a trade that

landed Josh Beckett and Mike Lowell

while sending Hanley Ramirez and Ani-

bal Sanchez to the Marlins. Then at the

Winter Meetings in December, the Sox

made another deal, sending Edgar

Renteria to the Braves for prospect Andy

Marte. (The team later flipped Marte to

Cleveland for Coco Crisp.)

Those deals offered multiple impor-

tant takeaways. First, by empowering

the baseball operations department dur-

ing a time of transition, the Red Sox

made dramatic changes that played a

crucial role in forging a championship in

2007.

“We did make some important deci-

sions,” said O’Halloran. “There were

pros and cons, but we ended up winning

a championship a couple years later. I

use it as a point to illustrate that big de-

cisions can be made. You don’t have to

be stagnant while you’re waiting for the

final solution at the top of the depart-

ment.”

At the same time, the process was

enormously challenging, particularly

when the group was spread out over

Thanksgiving, when a seemingly endless

number of phone calls sabotaged the

holiday.

“I think when you look back on it, the

Red Sox probably don’t win the ’07

World Series without Beckett and Low-

ell,” said Hoyer. “The organization was

put in a better place, but that process

was far from streamlined or smooth.”

The current four-person steering

committee is mindful of the need for

outstanding communication — a task

made easier, perhaps, by the long work-

ing relationship among them, with all

having been in the organization for at

least 13 years. O’Halloran called trust

and communication “a real strength for

this group.”

They’ve also proven mindful of the

impact that can be made by pushing

ahead rather than standing still. So far,

the Red Sox have made changes to their

coaching staff while committing to alter-

ing their pitching infrastructure.

They’ve also made changes to their pro

and amateur scouting departments.

As strange as it may seem that such

decisions are occurring before the ap-

pointment of a new leader, the experi-

ence in 2005 suggests that an organiza-

tion need not wait for a replacement to

try to grow stronger. Needs don’t disap-

pear simply because of the absence of a

leader; nor do opportunities. The ac-

tions that occur during a transitional pe-

riod do not come easily, yet they could

nonetheless have a profound impact on

the future of the Red Sox.

Alex Speier can be reached at

[email protected].

JONATHAN DANIEL/GETTY

Jed Hoyer:

“It became

very

convoluted”

when the

Red Sox had

a GM-by-

committee

in 2005.

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