Terry Francona gets a fond farewell from fans in Cleveland: ‘Thank you Tito’

CLEVELAND — Terry Francona’s facial expression never changed, even as the montage on the video board showed footage of his dad ripping a single, of Josh Naylor head-butting him, and of Michael Brantley shaving his head.

He leaned against his padded seat on the dugout steps, slightly rocking back and forth and chewing sunflower seeds. It was as if he was attending his own wake, his final home game as manager of the Guardians, fit with the blinding spotlight he tried so desperately to avoid.

Fans packed Progressive Field clad in red shirts that read, “Thank you Tito.” When the roar from the crowd refused to dissipate, Francona finally emerged from the dugout. He lifted his cap, turned to the stands and soaked it all in. And then, despite making a slashing gesture to his coaches in an effort to halt the stream of gratitude, he was summoned again. A second curtain call, the cap to an 11-year tenure that leaves his successor with clown-sized shoes to fill.

As Francona exits, here’s a collection of tales about the highs, lows and hijinks of his baseball life.

One last time in Cleveland. pic.twitter.com/Mmv5YLGKGj

— Zack Meisel (@ZackMeisel) September 27, 2023

They called him Tito as a boy, a nod to the mannerisms Terry Francona shared with his dad, who went by the same moniker. Francona was often ornery and energetic as a child, and the name was to reflect that. It wasn’t meant to be a compliment, but Francona considered it an honor to share that connection with his dad. Plus, as he often said, “I could be called a lot worse.”

Francona caught the baseball bug from his dad. How could he not? Baseball was embedded in Tito’s DNA, too. He played 15 years in the majors — including six with Cleveland — before heading the recreation department in his native Beaver County, Pa. He spent the final years of his life watching Indians games in his century home at the top of a hill that overlooked the diamond at New Brighton Middle School.

Father and son saw each other for the final time on Christmas 2017.

Francona called his dad and told him to check his front porch for a present.

Nothing there.

Francona told him to check the back porch.

There stood Francona, with his Tucson tan. Over three days, they ran errands, attended church, met with old friends and family and visited the gravesite of Francona’s late mother, Roberta. Francona bought his dad a Keurig machine, a sweatsuit and a new blanket, since Tito had been complaining about the winter chill.

Tito died seven weeks later.

“I love the game because of my dad,” Francona once said. “He taught me to care about baseball so deeply. I got that right from him. There’s no getting around that.”

On the way home from the funeral, an SUV full of family members in suits and dresses — everyone laughing, crying and feeling every emotion in between — stopped for hot dogs.

Francona treasures the Brighton Hot Dog Shoppe’s $1.75 delicacies the way he covets a late-October walk-off. Longtime baseball scribe John Perotto, also a native of Beaver County, visits Progressive Field once or twice a season, always with a styrofoam container of hot dogs, topped with chili and onions. Francona used to gift one to bench coach Brad Mills and wolf down the other five himself. When the Guardians played in Pittsburgh in July, the humble eatery catered the team’s bus ride back to Cleveland.

The Hot Dog Shoppe sits on the banks of the Beaver River on the “busiest” street in the small town, 3rd Avenue. The weathered red and yellow building serves as a reminder of why Francona and Cleveland paired so well. He thrived in Boston, where the payroll was high and the stakes and pressure were higher. But he’s a small-town midwesterner at heart.

Even as Cleveland’s front office explained all the reasons he might not want to take the job in 2012, he was adamant it was the right fit. No one involved in the process, Francona included, anticipated he’d spend 11 years with the organization.

Kevin Cash, Rays manager: “Baseball is losing somebody who’s been really, really instrumental to so many people who are within the game. Baseball is losing one of its best characters, personalities outside of a player uniform. Certainly very special to me, but special to so many people, players, coaches, and it feels like he’s got a hand in a lot of people’s careers and made quite the impression. Baseball will miss him.”

Before she tossed out a ceremonial first pitch at Progressive Field, Adriana Aviles, the 4-year-old daughter of Cleveland’s utility man, rubbed heads with the team’s manager. Mike Aviles will never forget it, nor will he forget how supportive Francona and the organization were in 2015 during his daughter’s battle with leukemia. Teammates, coaches, clubhouse staffers, front office members, the team chef and the PR staff buzzed or shaved their heads in support of Adriana. They sported yellow “Team Adriana” shirts for a photo to raise awareness for childhood leukemia. And Aviles will never erase the memory of the two hairless heads rubbing together before an emotional first pitch.

“It was a chance to show Mike that beyond hits and errors and runs, we care about him and his family,” Francona said at the time.

Sean Casey: “Tito had a great way of making you feel like he’s your friend, but also like he’s your dad. Like you could cross that line. You felt close to him, but you felt like if you weren’t doing your job, you’ll disappoint him. You don’t want to disappoint Tito.”

Royals pitching coach Brian Sweeney called it “humble leadership.” Twins GM Derek Falvey said Francona “puts everyone at ease.”

Few have matched Francona’s feats as a manager, yet you’ll never hear him volunteer any information from his résumé, only his blooper reel. No one is more self-deprecating, quicker to poke fun at themselves.

Sweeney, who coached on Francona’s staff in Cleveland, told Francona he sees a lot of him in Kansas City manager Matt Quatraro. Francona apologized.

When Jim Thome managed the 2019 Futures Game in Cleveland, he thanked Francona for lending him his office.

“Do you feel dumber?” Francona asked him. “Sit in that chair and you’ll feel dumber.”

Francona swims every morning, usually in a stationary SwimX machine or, on the road, in a hotel pool. Jay Hennessey, the Guardians’ vice president of baseball learning and development, has several decades of experience as a Navy SEAL. During the Winter Meetings last December, Hennessey found Francona a scenic spot in the San Diego Bay where he could swim with sharks. Francona declined the offer, convinced the sharks would confuse him for an otter or a seal and turn him into chum.

The Mills family owned bulls and a ranch in Texas. During the national anthem before a game in Houston one year, they closed a deal to acquire a new bull they named Big Tito. The bull never found much success in the arena, but it still prospered. As Francona said, “Big Tito ate better than” — Francona pointed to himself — “Big Tito.”

When Gambling.com determined over the winter that Francona was the American League’s most handsome manager, Francona was razzed for weeks. As Francona prepared to address his team one morning in spring training, team president Chris Antonetti summoned him from the clubhouse. The two chatted long enough for everyone to throw on a gray T-shirt depicting Francona’s portrait and the title, “American League’s Most Handsome Manager.” Francona returned to the room to find upwards of 80 people in on the prank.

Of course, Francona also dished it out plenty. If Francona teased you, it’s because he cared, like a middle schooler with a crush.

When Francisco Lindor arrived at spring training with platinum hair, Francona had photos of Amber Rose taped to lockers and walls throughout the facility.

When Josh Tomlin accidentally used a one-cent stamp for an envelope he was sending to his house, Francona regularly asked him in the months and years after the fact if that piece of mail ever reached its destination.

When Cleveland GM Mike Chernoff changed into more comfortable clothes in the airport parking lot, he asked Francona to hold his belongings. Using Chernoff’s phone, Francona snapped a photo of the shirtless general manager, mid-wardrobe change, texted it to himself and forwarded it to everyone in the organization. He still jokes to Chernoff that he can use it for blackmail at any time.

On Wednesday, Francona admitted: “I’ve probably had way more fun than you’re supposed to.”

Jason Kipnis: “I think we had a fun time where we like to knock ourselves down a peg and we realized that’s what we were both doing and then we realized we could knock each other down a peg or two. ‘Oh, I don’t have to beat myself up, I can just beat you up all the time.’ Similar one-liners, zingers. The group that was here was like a beehive for a while. You had to have your head on a swivel. You walk in wearing a stupid shirt by Tomlin or Brantley… but at the same time, it was almost like a race in because you had so much fun coming to the ballpark every day, and that starts with Tito.

“You could be 0-for-4, 0-for-12, but you had a smile coming into the ballpark because you knew it was gonna be a fun day.”

Nothing better exemplified Francona’s managing style than Cleveland’s 22-game winning streak in 2017. Francona has always preached to focus on the day at hand, regardless of results from a day, week, month or year earlier and regardless of what lurked. During that march toward history, it was painfully difficult to extract compelling material out of a team accomplishing something no other team had ever achieved. That’s a testament to how they bought into Francona’s mantra, refusing to indulge in the moment until it had passed.

Austin Hedges: “The thing that sticks in my head the most is we were in Texas last year and we saw that (the White Sox) lost. We were winning by a lot, so we were gonna win that game and clinch the division. We looked up at the scoreboard and saw (they) had lost. I wasn’t playing, I just remember looking and he looked at me and we made eye contact and it was just this smile of, ‘Dude, we did it. No one believed that we were gonna win this division and we just won this division.’ Just without even saying anything. Just looking into his eyes, like he could feel the love. That’s a moment that I’ll never forget.”

Francona wanted you to believe he was the worst hitter ever to strap on batting gloves. If not for injuries, though, he might have claimed a batting title.

He was serving as Cleveland’s designated hitter one afternoon in August 1988. Paul Zuvella was at the plate and Julio Franco was on deck. Francona came next, and as he studied Mark Gubicza, who finished third in the AL Cy Young balloting that season, hitting coach Charlie Manuel got his attention.

Francona hit .311 in 62 games that year, but as he tells the story, “I had very little chance” against Gubicza, who tossed a complete game that day.

Manuel: “Son, see that sign out there, way out there in right field?”

Francona: “Yeah.”

Manuel: “If that was me, that’s where I’d hit it. You just massage one over to third.”

When Francona arrived in Cleveland, it signaled change. On the heels of a 94-loss campaign, the franchise landed a manager with Hall of Fame credentials. They signed Nick Swisher and Michael Bourn, their first foray into free agency in years, and they made a memorable run to the Wild Card Game, thanks to 10 consecutive wins to close out the regular season (their third most-impressive win streak of the Francona era).

The only year under Francona in which the club didn’t seem destined for playoff contention was, ironically, 2022, thanks to a lackluster 2021 season and a lack of offseason upgrades. Nevertheless, in 2022, the Guardians surged to an AL Central title and Francona earned his third AL Manager of the Year honor in a decade.

In 2016, his bullpen usage, a necessary method of deployment based on the lagging health of the rotation, was considered revolutionary. Not by him, of course. He sidestepped all credit in favor of Andrew Miller and Cody Allen, who, by the way, was in attendance on Wednesday night for Francona’s swan song.

That October Francona preferred to steer conversation away from his mastery and toward his messes. He prattled on about ordering $44 worth of room service ice cream in the middle of the night before Game 5 of the World Series, or of waking up the morning of Game 7 with peanut butter on his glasses and his remote control lodged in his ribcage. Anything to shift the focus away from his feats.

He’d rather boast about his players or his fellow coaches.

After the 2018 season, Sweeney called Cleveland bullpen coach Scott Atchison. They were discussing Sweeney’s career plans, when he heard Francona in the background yell, “Tell him to get his ass here. We’re going to have some fun.” Sweeney, in fact, joined the staff that winter.

Quatraro spent four years on Francona’s staff in Cleveland. Ahead of the 2014 season, Francona called him to offer the role of assistant hitting coach.

“It made me feel like that was the most important thing they were going to do that winter,” Quatraro said.

Francona resisted answering questions about how he might feel during his final home game, his final week, his final innings as Cleveland manager.

“The one thing about emotions is you don’t know what they are until you live through them,” he said.

On the field beside first and third base the Guardians painted “Thank you Tito.” Everyone in the organization sported the red T-shirts with the same slogan. Mills flew in for the occasion.

“That’s not friendship,” Francona said. “He just wants a free T-shirt.”

In 2000, near the end of his first managerial tenure in the major leagues, his goodbye present in Philadelphia was a set of slashed tires on Fan Appreciation Day.

As for his Cleveland departure?

Well, his scooter was stolen earlier this month. He always parked it on E. 4th Street, a restaurant-filled, pedestrian-only corridor two blocks from the ballpark. Everyone knew who owned it, so for years, it went untouched.

A thief stole it in January, but police officers found it and returned it without incident. This time, he wasn’t so fortunate. The scooter was severely damaged. And, well…

“They defecated on it,” Francona said. “I told the police when I talked to them, ‘If they bring back the death penalty…’”

Francona instead spent the final homestand on a far less stable electric scooter, and he struck a pothole on his ride home one night. He flipped over the handlebars.

“It’s amazing how much you can see of your life in that moment,” he said.

His flip flop went flying. His dinner scattered across the cobblestone. A couple of fans approached him and Francona tried to convince them he wasn’t the famed manager of the Guardians. Then he asked them to check on his dinner.

And, finally…

Jenelle P., who shared the following about the end of an era in Cleveland: “I’ll be attending Tito’s last game, a game my father and I planned to attend together. He introduced me to baseball, to Tom Hamilton and being a season ticket holder. The José Ramírez TKO night was some of the most fun we had texting video and tweets back and forth. Sadly, he passed away unexpectedly Thursday morning. I’ll be sitting in section 452, undoubtedly with tears streaming down my face. It’s going to signify the end of an era for many reasons, none of which I’m ready for.”

(Top photo of Terry Francona on Wednesday before his final home game as Guardians manager: Jason Miller / Getty Images)