Francona hired as new Tribe skipper

CLEVELAND (AP) — Terry Fran­cona signed a four-year con­tract with the Cleve­land Indi­ans. He hopes to stay even longer.

“I don’t want to be a rental man­ager,” Fran­cona said Mon­day as he was intro­duced as the club’s 42nd man­ager. “I didn’t want to come in wor­ried. I want to be part of the solu­tion. I want to stick around.

“I didn’t come here to go to pasture.”

Fran­cona, who led the Boston Red Sox to two World Series titles, was hired over the week­end by the Indi­ans. He was cho­sen over Sandy Alo­mar Jr., who served as the club’s final six games after Manny Acta was fired. Fran­cona takes overs an Indi­ans team that col­lapsed from con­tention by going 5–24 in August and fin­ish­ing 68–94, the third time in the past four sea­sons they have lost at least 90 games.

Fran­cona and Alo­mar were the only can­di­dates to inter­view for the job. Finan­cial terms of Fran-cona’s deal were not imme­di­ately known.

Fran­cona spent the past year as a TV ana­lyst, step­ping away from the game after the Red Sox fol­low­ing the team’s his­toric Sep­tem­ber col­lapse in 2011.

The 53-year-old pre­vi­ously worked in Cleve-land’s front office, and Fran­cona said the chance to work again with Indi­ans gen­eral man­ager Chris Antonetti and team pres­i­dent Mark Shapiro was the most intrigu­ing aspect of tak­ing the job.

The Indi­ans have always held a spe­cial place for Fran­cona. His 78-year-old father, Tito, played in Cleve­land from 1959–64 and Fran­cona said he cried when he told his father he had accepted the Indi­ans’ job.

Tito Fran­cona attended his son’s news conference.

Fran­cona said he has not yet hired any coaches for his staff. Alo­mar could return as Cleveland’s bench coach, but the 46-year-old, who served as the club’s interim man­ager for the final six games, could be a can­di­date for other man­age­r­ial openings.

Since agree­ing to join the Indi­ans, Fran­cona said he has reached out to sev­eral play­ers and is eager to begin get­ting the team headed in the right direction.

“This is a clean slate for every­body,” said Fran­cona, who is excited about Cleveland’s core of young play­ers. “Deal­ing with play­ers is fun. Deal­ing with young play­ers is really fun.”

Posted by Jon Kleinknecht on Oct 8 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.