In an attempt to curtail some of the gossip coming out of Fenway Park these days, Red Sox starting pitcher Jon Lester decided to face the charges head on and discuss them with members of the Boston sports media.
On Monday he went into full defensive mode, granting interviews to ESPN’s Gordon Edes, the Boston Globe’s Peter Abraham and the Providence Journal’s Brian MacPherson to clear the air and get his side of the story out there.
Lester admitted there was drinking in the clubhouse, but claims they were only imbibing in “9th inning rally” beers and he boiled down the September collapse to being caused by the team “not being very good”.
He also brought up his feelings for former manager Terry Francona:
“Tito has been great to me and great to my family, and I’ve thanked him many times for what he’s done for me – off the field more than on the field,” Lester said. “But there comes a time, like in any business in the world that’s run by somebody, that you need to step back and let a fresh face step in. Tito got burnt out. Eight years in Boston, it’s a tough place to be a manager – or be a player. Night in, night out, he’s got to answer questions about his job and about every else’s job. He was burnt out. He was ready to go.”
Lester considers the stories coming out about the clubhouse a “witch hunt” but did say that the collapse wasn’t anyone’s fault except the players on the team.
It seems now, more than anything else, he wants people to know that he and his fellow pitchers, especially John Lackey and Josh Beckett, are “good guys” because he worries that fans will think they’re idiots (“not like the ’04 idiots, but a bunch of overpaid babies”).
If the online communities of baseball fans are any indication, Lester might have his work cut out for him trying to convince people that the group of players who he claims “needed more structure” really are the good guys and NOT a bunch of overpaid babies claiming to need a stricter babysitting than Terry Francona turned out to be.
(Originally published on Examiner.com)