According to
Yahoo! Sports' Jeff Passan,
Red Sox players now view the NOG's "owners' box" as a den of 'lies, leaks and resentment'—creating distrust between employer and employee. The signature move that characterizes this disconnect is Larry Lucchino's hiring of Bobby Valentine as manager. After the
Gotham City Round Table on July 27th, players were
sure there would be swift, corrective action. None came. And, after
Breakfast In Emerald City over the week-end, the NOG vowed to keep Valentine for the rest of the year. Again, the players were expecting change. None came. This is the underlying mood that permeates your 2012 Red Sox—at least according to Passan.
When Lucchino hired Valentine to be an authoritarian ruler and put him in charge of this dysfunctional squad it was like throwing him into "a clubhouse of territorial alpha dogs, Francona loyalists and those wounded by last September". This, Passan says, became "a Molotov cocktail of a hire." Passan believes that unless and until Bobby V. is gone, the Carmine Hose have no chance of regaining the championship edge that brought us two rings.
