July 18, 2006
How Green is my Monster?
In Feeding the Monster, Seth Mnookin offers an intimate view into the operation of the Red Sox from their sale by the Yawkey Trust to the start of the 2006 season. Seth's prose is enjoyable to read. As I initially skimmed the book, I found my self reading pages into chapters rather than just trying to get the gist of the story. Mnookin spent 2005 with a desk at Fenway, going to meetings, interviewing personnel, almost acting as part of the operation. Through him we learn how the Henry group came together, and how Charles Dolan lost the team by offering money to the limited partners too early. Seth takes us through the long process that developed into the rift between Lucchino and Epstein, something that could have been fixed early if either of them had spoken about it to the other.
Manny Ramirez, Nomar Garciaparra, Pedro Martinez and Kevin Millar are all explored in depth. Despite this, I understand Manny no better now than I did before reading the book. The Manny tales are more a rehash of what we know. Mnookin never gets in the player's head. That was a big disappointment.
What turned out to be very interesting to me was the tension between Baseball Operations and Marketing. Theo Epstein felt marketing was promising too much to the fans. Epstein realized after the 2005 season the team might need to take a step backward so they could be both a high revenue club and have a strong farm system. But marketing wouldn't listen and that helped drive Theo away from the team in last October.
It's a fascinating look at how a team operates, how players behave, and how the media is involved in all of it. While Red Sox fans will love every minute of the book, any baseball fan will enjoy the real-life drama that was the Red Sox over the last four seasons. I highly recommend Feeding the Monster.
Posted by David Pinto at
06:19 PM
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