![]() They were rich transients in a region that prided itself on blue-collar loyalty, but Henry, now 72, had joined Werner and Lucchino’s bid with absolute clarity that he planned to live in Boston the rest of his life. lawyer turned veteran sports executive who’d worked for the Redskins, Orioles and Padres. President and CEO Larry Lucchino was a Washington, D.C. Werner was a television executive known for “The Cosby Show” and “Roseanne” who had become managing partner of the Padres. He’d made his fortune on the commodities market and already owned the Florida Marlins. Henry was the midwestern son of a soybean farmer. In such an insular community, the incoming owners were unmistakable outsiders. Their first stop the next morning, at the insistence of advisor George Mitchell, was a visit with Mayor Tom Menino, “because that’s the way things are done in Boston.” Within a half hour, the new owners saw reports of their winning bid break on local television. For the first time in nearly 70 years, the Red Sox were changing hands, wiping the slate clean. Hours had passed without a word from Red Sox executive John Harrington or his limited partners with the Yawkey Trust, and so Henry and his band of prospective buyers had all but given up.īy 8 p.m., they were making plans to change clothes and go out for pizza when one of their lawyers, Creighton Condon, walked into the room and gave them a thumbs up. 20, 2001, the group of investors that would revitalize baseball in New England had resigned itself to quiet disappointment. Gathered inside a Boston hotel suite on Dec. Now, as Henry’s 21st Opening Day as the team’s principal owner nears, his legacy in Boston sports and in baseball is both secure and growing, one that can be seen in their offices and in those around the league. “If I do have a legacy, it’s going to be this group of talented individuals and what they have accomplished and will continue to build with those to come after I’m gone,” Henry said. In a series of wide-ranging interviews with Red Sox executives past and present, The Athletic explored an organizational makeover that seemed momentarily doomed but ultimately turned the Red Sox into a baseball powerhouse - while transforming its ownership team, now called Fenway Sports Group, into an international force of influence and power. In business and on the field, the organization has become a model franchise, imperfect but prosperous, with much of its newfound success rooted in the introduction of a collaborative, open-minded culture that was ahead of its time - and has since spread throughout baseball as young executives trained in the system have moved on to lead teams around the league. ![]() ![]() The Red Sox have experienced more success in the past two decades than in the previous century, and the franchise’s turning point is unmistakable: the arrival of a new ownership group, led by John Henry, that officially took over 20 years ago this spring training. ![]() It was also the first chapter in a brand-new story, one that is still being written. What happened next is surely the most-documented turnaround in baseball history, an unprecedented comeback that culminated in a championship not seen in generations, effectively and finally closing the book on a long, tormented period of Red Sox history. Then, somebody said to me, ‘You better watch what’s going on, because Kevin Millar just walked.’” “(Writing that) we were determined at some point to actually get to that next level. “I (was) working on a statement in our box about how disappointed we were that once again the Yankees had beaten us, and were moving on to the World Series,” said Werner, recalling how he’d worked alongside CEO Larry Lucchino and chief executive Charles Steinberg.
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