Is John Henry the once and future owner of the Red Sox?

Maybe the owner isn’t the problem as much as ownership as an institution

On Wednesday new broke about two sports franchises changing hands.

First, the Tampa Bay Bay Rays, formerly of St. Petersburg, are close to being sold to a Jacksonville-based developer.

Then it was announced that the owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers is buying the Los Angeles Lakers.

The White Sox announced a succession plan this month to a billionaire who was first rumored to be interested in purchasing the Minnesota Twins.

With last place, .500, and sub .500 seasons piling up recently for Boston, there have been calls to sell the team. Which, thanks to the monster that is Fenway Sprots Group, is easier said than done. While the Red Sox may be the crown jewel in FSG’s portfolio of soccer, hockey, racing, and god knows what other questionable investments (like eventually an NBA expansion team with Bronny James’ dad) the team is probably tied to John Henry for a long time to come.

That said, he’s 75. Tom Werner is 75. Larry Lucchino is, well, dead. The original purchasing group that saved Fenway Park, broke the curse, and made the Red Sox the most successful MLB team of the first two decades of the 21st century is running out of time. But Jerry Reinsdorf of the White Sox is 89 and his plan runs 10 years. He could be pushing 100 before the team really changes hands. We could have almost 30 more years of the current leadership, if you think that someone is going to sweep in and fire Breslow or open up the checkbook or cut ticket prices or source better hot dogs (I don’t know, people have weird top motivations) that seems unliklely these days.

Last year, R.J. Anderson wrote about publicly owned sports teams, a phenomenon largely absent from America.

Major-league markets are different in every way, from their geography to their demographics to their traditions. The one constant is so plain, so unremarkable: They all must suffer a billionaire or corporate owner. To accept that is to accept that the day will come when the owner’s interests clash with the community’s.

The introduction of the piece is about, as everything in baseball must start, New York. Their owner was in legal trouble, the team was in decline (aside from maybe an intrepid upstart working for the traveling secretary), and Mario Cuomo was thinking maybe the way to keep the Yankees in New York is to have New York own them. A publicly-operated team. Not the same as the Green Bay Packers model or the Oakland Ballers aka the B’s or the “publicly traded” Atlanta Braves. But owned by a municipality. Which happens in other parts of the world.

And it really is a great idea. From Anderson:

Public ownership does away with the unchecked profiteering, as well as with the relocation threats — the team is owned by the municipality it resides in, after all. That is not to say that profit is not a goal, it is merely not the only priority; besides, the public model demands greater transparency and democracy when it comes to a team’s finances.

It’s not like we would have had years of Mayor Menino glad-handing players to recruit them – the team would still have had a GM or POBO or whatever. Just that instead of maximizing profit maybe, you know, you’d want a sustainable revenue generating team? That doesn’t tank for years? That focuses on brining fans to the ballpark more than signing a deal with Comcast? Not that this is a plan to make the team win every year. Some years you simply won’t be good. But fans would be even more tied to the team of their city. The city of their team.

This is to say: it would be nice to never worry that some day John Henry will die and guess what, the Sox are for sale and the new owner has a billion acres in Arkansas to develop and will move the Sox there because there’s more space to build a mall surrounding the ballpark. That’s about the most farcical way to imagine it but if even the Yankees thought about moving to Jersey from The Bronx, I mean, what else could happen?

As the rust belt continues to decline will the Reds leave Cincinnati? The Reds can trace their origins back to 1869 where there were only 38 states! But any rich dude/dudette who comes along or forms an investment group could purchase the team and say “so long and thanks for all the fish” and move them away. MLB could, of course, have rules preventing this stuff but that would be anti-owner so who would support it?

This has been a long bridge back to FSG’s reign of ownership. There are are three players now – unsurprisingly The Big Three – who were born after John Henry purchased the Red Sox.

Roman Anthony was born on May 13, 2004. The Red Sox lost 12-6 to the Toronto Blue Jays in the better named Sky Dome. This was two days before Kevin Youkilis made his major league debut. The Red Sox lineup? Johnny Damon, Mark Bellhorn, David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Jason Varitek, Kevin Millar in right field, Brian Daubach, César Crespo, and Pokey Reese. The Blue Jays started Orlando Hudson, Frank Catalanotto, Vernon Wells, Carlos Delgado, Josh Phelps, Eric Hinske, Chris Gomes, Howie Clark, and Kevin Cash. This is the managing, coaching, announcing class these days. Youkilis, who debuted two days later remember, retired in 2013 after a ten-year career. He stuck around.

Should two failsons inherit the Yankees because their dad happened to buy the team? Should, whoever, simply determine the fate of the Red Sox, the team that won the first World Series, because they’re from Nashville? Is owning a team so long that literally people born in the first few years of your ownership are now playing for the team simply too long? This isn’t to argue that FSG and John Henry can’t effectively run baseball and soccer and hockey etc. It’s that after some number of wins, some amount of success, (let’s say four World Series titles) does there still exist the bragging rights reasons you wanted to be a sports owner?

I don’t know the heart of the man. But 2002 John Henry, wearing his silly hat, would have been embarrassed that the Evil Empire owns the AL East again while his team is a laughing stock. And the possibility of deep pockets byuing the Rays, or that the Orioles young players rebounding, leaving Boston to linger again in the 70-win range, would have worried him.

When the Red Sox finished in third place in 2006 they rewrote the entire thought process around posting players to sign Daisuke Matsuzaka, whom many people were calling the best pitcher on the planet.

Now they’re shedding payroll by way of trading the best hitter on the team. Fans pay the highest ticket prices in baseball only to have the marrow sucked out of them so a soccer player can sign a contact and not change the overall debt and expenditures level of FSG’s balance sheet. I guess that’s the alignment that really matters. Is “I drink your milkshake” still a relevant turn of phrase? ‘Cause it sure seems like the other portfolio companies are drinking the Red Sox milkshake right now.

And you know what, maybe the Devers trade works. Maybe the kids are alright. But during the season ownership can’t tell Craig Breslow “hey we just got $200 million let’s get to work.” Maybe John Henry said just that after the Kansas City meeting with Devers where everything truly fell apart. I don’t know. But maybe owning a team long enough that an entire generation is born, grows up, and and starts working for you is long enough.