Cleveland Guardians Welcome Back Manager Terry Francona

Leave it to someone who has undergone numerous surgeries, endured months of rehab, and spent countless weeks in hospitals in order to return to the game that he loves, to remind us why baseball is worth going through all that.

There may not be in the game a greater ambassador for the game than 62-year-old Terry John Francona, a baseball lifer, and proud of it. He grew up in a baseball family, and has spent all of his adult life in baseball, to the point that baseball, for all intents and purposes, is his family.

Baseball is all he’s ever known. It’s the only job he’s ever had: 14 years as a player, 25 years as a manager. He’s been around so long that when he took a timeout from his job as the manager in Cleveland a year ago for another round of surgeries and rehabs, his team was called the Indians. He’s now back on the job and the name of the team is Guardians.

“It’s been a hard couple of years,” said Francona, in his first meeting with reporters at Cleveland’s spring training camp in Goodyear, Ariz. “This toe thing was way harder than I ever thought it would be. I had my hip done in August and a week later I was up, moving round. This thing here (toe), it’s the hardest surgery I’ve ever had, and I’m a real good authority on surgeries.”

He should be. Through the years he’s had more than his share, especially in the last two years, when he missed significant portions of the baseball season both years while recovering from toe and hip surgeries, among other ailments. Last season he wore a walking boot while managing the team before stepping aside at midseason when it became too difficult to continue.

“Everything was hard,” he said. “From waking up in the morning, putting a bag on my foot to take a shower, to sitting on a stool. Nothing was easy. It kind of wore me down.”

Now he’s back on his feet and ready to begin his 10^th season as the manager of the Guardians. The spring training lockout, followed by the long negotiations between Major League Baseball and the Players Association before the two sides hammered out a new Collective Bargaining Agreement was clearly not the game’s finest hour. That fact that was not lost on Francona, a baseball lifer who is also one of baseball’s biggest fans.

“We – the players, coaches, whoever _ we need to show people how much we care about our game,” Francona said. “Unfortunately, we don’t always put our best foot forward in that area. Because we do love our game. It doesn’t always show that much, but shame on us for that. We need to do better, because we do care about our game. The people in it, we always think it’s the best game. This is the game we love. We just need to learn how to explain it better.”

Francona’s biggest fan might be Guardians’ president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti.

“There’s a lot of great things happening now, and Tito’s health is at the top of the list,” Antonetti said. “He’s such an integral part of who we are and the fabric of our organization. When he’s around, he helps make everyone better. We’re thrilled that he’s feeling great and energized and ready for the season. Now our challenge is, we need to make sure he stays there and continues on the path that he’s on.”

The Guardians last year had a record of 80-82, the first losing season in Francona’s nine years as manager. The team has made no major additions since the end of last season, but, said Antonetti, “I don’t think the dollars we have to spend in 2022 will be a limiting factor.”

Cleveland’s payroll has been near the bottom of the major leagues the last few years, but Antonetti feels good about the future.

“We have a really exciting group at the major league level, and a really healthy farm system, so we should be capable of building some really good teams moving forward,” he said. “We want to make sure any decisions we make help us in the short term but don’t hurt us in the long term. That’s the balance we need.”