You had to know this was going to happen, and have to know it’s going to happen often. They switched roles, and as an analyst Francona is going to make comments about his former team during the season and Valentine is going to be asked about his thoughts on those comments.
We all know what Tito did as manager of the Boston Red Sox, and we all know how his tenure as skipper of the BoSox came to an inglorious end. Francona fell on his sword for the team at the close of last season, and then the Red Sox front office began to pile trash on top after not renewing his contract.

An anonymous team official reported that Francona had an addiction to painkillers which affected his job performance last season. That report is found to be false.

Then came the story that has stuck, that Francona was allowing players to play video games while eating Fried Chicken and drinking Beer in the clubhouse during games. This has erroneously become the cause of the Red Sox collapse. Predictably, the media and a number of fans (pink hats) clambered onto the “Chicken and Beer” bandwagon, while ignoring the reports that the Red Sox were doing shots in the dugout prior to playoff games in 2004 – which no one seems to complain about, even now.

The big news this weekend from Fort Meyers should have been the reporting of players, but instead became the report of Valentine’s banning alcohol from the clubhouse, and Francona’s comment of the “Beer Ban” being a PR stunt. The thing is I’m convinced that Francona is right; the beer ban is a PR stunt, but not a PR stunt perpetrated by Valentine.

Yes, Valentine is right that banning alcohol from the clubhouse is a good decision, but instead of announcing this new policy ASAP, the Red Sox waited for Bobby Valentine to make the official announcement after the full team reported to spring training. So the question in response to Bobby Valentine’s statement is this: Why didn’t the Red Sox make this good decision earlier in the offseason? Why did the organization wait until Spring training? Why did the organization wait for Bobby Valentine to make the announcement?

The fact is that the Boston Red Sox were going to ban alcohol from the clubhouse no matter whom the manager happened to be this season. This policy can be directly attributed to the combination of media coverage and the complaints by fans on both talk radio and on redsox.com about the teams collapse, and that collapse being linked to, if not directly attributed to, the presence of “chicken and beer” in the clubhouse. I’m sure John Henry and Larry Lucchino were unhappy about the Red Sox being the butt of numerous jokes centered around Halloween costumes of Red Sox jerseys with KFC buckets and beer bottles. If anyone following the Red Sox was surprised by the decision to ban alcohol, the only explanation is that they must have been living with their heads buried in the ground since August 30^th, 2011.

At the Haloween party I went to, with KFC beer drinking Red Sox costumed party-goer in atendance, the discussion wasn’t about if the Red Sox would ban alcohol from the clubhouse, but rather when and how they would announce it.

Simply put, Bobby Valentine making the announcement gives the appearance that the policy comes from the manager, and not from the Red Sox front office. As with anything in life, when things go wrong the person making the decisions deserves the blame. If management makes the decision to change the policy on alcohol in the clubhouse then they would deserve the blame for the fried chicken and beer last season. If Bobby V makes the announcement, the media reports the story as “Valentine Bans Beer in Clubhouse,” not as “Red Sox Bans Beer in Clubhouse.”  It provides the implication that this decision is solely the manager’s, and that no responsibility for the alcohol issue should lay with upper management. It also supports the erronous assertion that the alcohol in the clubhouse was the contributing factor to the Red Sox September struggles and collapse. That simply isn’t the case.

The Red Sox could have followed the lead of organizations like the Cardinals, Brewers, and (yikes) the Yankees who have banned Alcohol from the clubhouses, including the visiting clubhouse at Yankee stadium since 2007. These organizations, not their managers, have placed the ban on alcohol in the clubhouse.

So yes, this appears to be the work of the Red Sox front office trying to avoid taking blame for the chicken and beer, and putting further blame onto the shoulders of Tito. I think the fried chicken and beer is a red herring, and was not the cause of the Red Sox collapse, no matter how much the pink hats want it to be. The blame over alcohol in the clubhouse should ultimately not belong to the Red Sox organization. The heart of the matter is that there is a lack of an alcohol policy by MLB, which has chosen to leave the decision up to the individual organizations.

While I feel Francona does not deserve the blame, I do disagree with his statement on Mike and Mike (ESPN radio) that “We used to tell the guys, you have certain privileges. Don’t abuse the privileges or they will be taken away.”  Sadly, alcohol abuse has caused problems for ballplayers, and this has not resulted in the privilege being taking away. Now I don’t think Francona is the cause of the alcohol problems, but Josh Hamilton has been under the microscope for his recent relapse for drinking a beer. Miguel Cabrera recently had his own DUI incident, although not directly linked to alcohol in a clubhouse. Josh Hancock died in 2007 from a drunken driving accident attributed to drinking in the clubhouse, which also happened to follow the spring training DUI of his manager Tony LaRussa earlier that season. The death of Hancock led to the Cardinals ban of alcohol in the clubhouse, but it should have sparked MLB to make that decision league-wide as well. However, and unfortunately, the prevalence of alcohol abuse is not a recent development. Looking back at history we can find players with alcohol issues ranging from Dwight Gooden, Daryl Strawberry, Roger Maris, Mickey Mantle, and even back to the good old days of Babe Ruth. Even a recent episode of the TV show Psych had guest star Wade Boggs joke that he once drank 64 beers on a team cross country flight. The privilege has been abused repeatedly, and not been taken away from ballplayers.

The sad thing is that the butt of the alcohol joke is on MLB for not having a clubhouse alcohol policy in the first place.