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...John Henry, the team's principal owner. Henry, a lifelong St. Louis fan, grew up on an Arkansas farm listening to Cardinals radio broadcasts. He developed a gift for numbers, computing batting averages in his head and eventually making millions trading commodities. He and his partners bought the Sox in 2001 for an estimated $660 million. What Boston fans deemed a curse was, to him, a statistical anomaly at best. Or lousy management. One explanation for Boston's years of failure is that the team wasn't run very well. Tom Yawkey, the owner from 1933 until his death...
...shortstop Alex Rodriguez to Beantown. The deal fell apart, and Rodriguez eventually landed in New York. But Epstein had other gems in sight. He splashed out $24 million for a much-needed closer, Keith Foulke, after landing the incomparable Schilling, a certified Yankee killer. The additions gave the Red Sox a lineup that was perfectly balanced on the field--and refreshingly off-center in the clubhouse...
...final pieces were assembled on July 31, the eve of the trading deadline, as the Sox shipped out shortstop Nomar Garciaparra. No-mah, as Boston fans know him, went to the Chicago Cubs in a complicated trade that brought the relatively unknown Orlando Cabrera from Montreal. Trading Garciaparra was risky. He was a baseball Brahmin, descended from the line of Boston icons that included Ted Williams and Carl Yastrzemski. But Garciaparra had been unsettled since the Sox tried to land Rodriguez. It was a gutsy, initially unpopular trade, but it worked out. Says Epstein: "One thing about our ownership--they...
Maybe it's tempting the fates to even raise the question, inviting a brand-new curse. But could this talented Red Sox team win it all again next year? It won't be easy. In today's era of free agents and salary arbitration, it's almost impossible to build dynasties. For a bit more money, players regularly flee even fun-loving championship teams. In the past three decades, baseball has produced just two mini-dynasties: the 1972-74 Oakland A's and the 1996-2000 New York Yankees. The Red Sox seem particularly vulnerable to market forces: as many...
...Sox will probably come up with the cash to keep Varitek, who guided a weary pitching staff through four straight playoff wins over the Yankees. Cabrera is iffy--he doesn't draw enough walks for number crunchers like Epstein, and several top shortstops are on the market. Lowe, the first pitcher to win the final game in all three playoff rounds, may have thrown his last sinker in Boston. As ESPN analyst (and former New York Mets general manager) Steve Phillips puts it, "He's too high maintenance...