Red Sox Collapse 2011: Blame Starts at the Top but Not Accountability

For anyone that's ever worked for a large corporation, the recent Red Sox drama probably isn't all that unfamiliar. How many people have watched seemingly valued co-workers be shown the door only to be told by upper management how much better off everyone will be without the services of the now "ex-employees" down the road?

Welcome to  "Corporate Drama: The Boston Red Sox Chronicles 2011 Edition." It's ugly, folks. The Red Sox collapse of 2011 had plenty of villains and apparently everyone was at fault—
except for ownership, who were innocently blindsided by petulant athletes who drank in the clubhouse and fell out of shape.

Of course that happened because of the Managers' off the field issues and apparent pill popping. No one knew about that though because the General Manager apparently intended to jump ship to the Chicago Cubs following the season. 

The poor Red Sox owners—it must be rough to be taken advantage of by so many employees. 
Wait—who hired these guys? Who signs the checks, who sets the mood, who's really in charge?

The problem with trying to isolate yourself from blame is that it generally has the opposite effect. While story after story mysteriously infiltrates the Boston Media detailing all the things that everyone except ownership did wrong, one question remains to be answered. Where exactly does the proverbial "buck" stop in Beantown?

No one has heard a peep from the three-headed Henry/Werner/Lucchino trio since Epstein's departure was announced. What Boston baseball fans have heard is that all the players are lazy, fat, slobs who drink and don't care. A story in the Boston Globe the other day exposed numerous details of disturbing behavior in the Boston Clubhouse during games.

As bad as drinking in the clubhouse sounds to the casual or even passionate fan, it's been taking place in baseball clubhouses forever. Not in every clubhouse, but it's not that uncommon. Anyone think that Billy Martin or Mickey Mantle were the only Yankees ever to have a drink at what would be considered an unprofessional time? Didn't David Wells throw a perfect game hungover? Didn't Doc Ellis pitch a no-hitter while on LSD in the '70s?

Those are all somewhat charming stories because one, they're not happening right now, but two, because the results were positive. The Yankees of the '50s, late '70s and late '90s were dominant. The Pirates won two World Series in the '70s also.

The 2011 Red Sox choked in an epic fashion so what was once a part of baseball culture has now become the ultimate sin.

Maybe the Red Sox didn't know about Beckett's habit of hanging in the Marlin's clubhouse during games on off-days when they acquired him in 2005, as was revealed in today's Boston Globe.

Surely they knew about it by the time the 2007 season began, one season following a disappointing 2006 debut in Boston for Beckett. Sox Management must have known about it when they signed Beckett to a contract extension last April right? If they didn't then isn't that their own fault? It seems unlikely they didn't know though. More likely was that to reveal those facts then would have made Sox management look bad—revealing it now provides cover for the epic collapse.

The issue here clearly isn't what Beckett does, it's how it makes the owners look. If the Sox are winning, Beckett can probably play Madden on his iphone between innings of a start. If the Sox lose then Beckett was supposed to have been with his teammates but he wasn't because he's a lazy, spoiled player. This isn't a defense of Beckett's actions but it is worth questioning how much upper management knew about, long before the Red Sox went 7-21 in September of 2011.

Sox ownership apparently didn't know about anything going on in the clubhouse as the team imploded in late 2011. They didn't know that Captain Jason Varitek wasn't speaking to his players, they didn't know that the pitching staff was having fried chicken/video game hour behind the scenes and they didn't know that many of their players had slacked off on conditioning as well.

Memo to upper management—if no one is telling you anything there are usually two reasons for that. One is that nobody feels you are accessible, and two is that no one thinks you'd care even if you knew. Those two problems aren't Theo's problems, they aren't Tito's problems and they aren't the players' problems. Those are called systemic organizational problems and they don't start with the low level or mid level employees.

Problems like this are generally not fixed by using sabermetrics or inviting your players on catered yacht trips complete with $300 gift bags. They're fixed by confronting them, while they're happening and that usually causes public problems. That can also fix the problem though. There may have been things that could have been done back in August or Early September that may have united the Sox against management. That might not have been a palatable scenario for those at the top but sometimes teams need something, anything to rally around. 40 guys united in an effort to prove to management they aren't a bunch of spoiled athletes sure seems like a better circumstance than four guys united in finishing off a fried chicken dinner.

That doesn't matter anymore though. The season is over and the collapse is complete. The Owners want everyone to believe that it's everyone else's fault but their own. Get rid of the GM! Get rid of the Manager! Get rid of the players! Those are all great ideas—especially if the owners can make their own trades, write out their own lineup cards, hit in the clutch, and get out of two-on-one-out jams by throwing a mix of fastballs and well placed breaking balls. They can't though, and if it seems like the Red Sox have a had a myriad of different players play and fail at different positions in different roles over the past few seasons maybe it's time to ask who's really to blame for this 2011 collapse.

Ben Shapiro writes for TheFanManifesto. He can be followed on twitter at @ShapperNYC 

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