So, what's the difference between Ben Cherington and hisimmediate predecessor at 4 Yawkey Way?
'Well, I can't play guitar,' the Red Sox new general manageracknowledged when he took the job last week. 'And I don't have agorilla suit - although I don't think Theo did, either.'
What the 37-year-old Cherington does have that Theo Epstein didnot when Epstein took the job before the 2003 campaign is two WorldSeries rings, higher expectations, and much more on his To-Do List.Before the ball club begins its 100th season at Fenway Park nextspring, Cherington will have to hire a manager to replace thedeparted Terry Francona, make decisions about retaining iconicveterans Jason Varitek, Jonathan Papelbon, David Ortiz, and TimWakefield, and deal with the fallout from the biggest late-seasoncollapse in baseball history.
'The level of scrutiny holds us accountable,' said Cherington.'As painful as September was, that will be healthy for us in thelong run to be held accountable for it because we may not have beenheld as accountable were we in a different market.'
Cherington grew up in that market and has worked in the Bostonfront office for 13 years under two ownerships and three generalmanagers as coordinator of international scouting, director ofplayer development, and senior vice president and assistant GM aswell as acting co-GM with Jed Hoyer during Epstein's 2005sabbatical.
'Ben's paid his dues,' said J.P. Ricciardi, the former Blue JaysGM who now serves as a Mets special assistant. 'He learned thebusiness from the ground up. He's been in that high-profileenvironment for a long time so he's not going to walk in and say,`Oh my God, this is what the job entails?' '
Like Epstein and Dan Duquette before him, Cherington was to theNation born. He grew up in Meriden, N.H., a village that had only afew dozen more people than the Sox farm system. He made his firstFenway pilgrimage at 5, sitting spellbound in the bleachers in theJuly heat, and saw subsequent games with his grandmother, aCambridge resident who would drive up to New Hampshire to bring himdown.
'I remember distinctly a couple of Sox-Brewers games againstHarvey's Wallbangers when they had all those big power hitters,'said Cherington. 'I remember a couple of very lopsided losses backwhen there was just a net above the Monster. I remember GormanThomas hitting balls over it.'
That was when the town team was en route from third to sixthplace, and when first place was a fantasy.
When the 1986 club had its one-strike-away tease in the Seriesagainst the Mets, Cherington was in disbelief.
'He was just so mad at what happened,' recalled his mother,Gretchen. 'I was taken away by how upset he was at the loss. He tookit very personally.'
Aiming for front office
Cherington developed into a sanguine and solid pitcher atAmherst, where the baseball tradition predates the Sox by decades.
'He was unflappable on the mound,' remembered Bill Thurston, whocoached the Lord Jeffs for 44 years. 'Ben was one of the fewpitchers I had who was comfortable pitching to contact. He had a lotof confidence in himself.'
But Cherington's pitching career ended after he tore his labrumbefore his junior season, and while he came back as an outfielderfor his final year, his playing days were over.
'On the one hand, it was a low moment because it was the firsttime I couldn't play baseball in my life,' he said. 'But out of thatlow moment came an appreciation for how much I loved the game andhow much passion I had for it, because being detached from it was sopainful.'
So Cherington served as a volunteer pitching coach with thevarsity and sent letters and resumes to every major league club,looking for a front-office job.
'Fortunately, there was already a bit of an Amherst traditionthere, so I had something real to point to where it didn't seem soimpossible,' he said. 'Harry Dalton blazed the trail and Dan cameafter him, and by that time Neal Huntington was working for theExpos. So you could end up in a front office without playingprofessionally.'
Cherington had spent the summer before his senior year as a Soxintern, most of it holding a radar gun.
'For a 20-year-old who loves baseball, to sit behind home platefor the entire summer and chart pitches was like a dream come true,'his mother recalled. 'It didn't matter that Ben didn't sleep or eator do anything else. He loved that.'
When the letters and resumes didn't produce a job, Cheringtonenrolled in the sports management program at UMass, earned hismaster's degree, and kept working as a varsity assistant withThurston.
'Bill taught me it doesn't matter how many people are watching orwhether you're getting paid or not,' said Cherington. 'You can be aprofessional.'
His coach, impressed with his pupil's maturity, diligence, andcandor, recommended that Duquette hire him.
'If you give him a chance, you'll be happy,' Thurston told him.
There wasn't an opening in Boston in 1998, but there was one inCleveland, which was looking for a part-time video advance scout.Josh Byrnes and Paul DePodesta, who both became GMs, auditioned him.
'I watched an Indians-Yankees game with them on TV and they askedme to break down the Yankee hitters and talk about how I would goabout pitching them,' Cherington said. 'I don't know if I got any ofthem right, but I guess I did well enough so that they hired me.
'My job was to prepare a report for the major league staff beforeevery series, based on a combination of watching games, chartingthem, and collecting data from other resources.
'It was daunting. It wasn't any major league staff but the staffof a team that expected to win and had been in the World Series theyear before. Looking back, I'm amazed still that they gave me thatresponsibility, but it was certainly a terrific opportunity.'
Prospecting in Boston
Cherington was back in Boston a year later with a full-timepaycheck and a wider range of duties.
'With executives, like players, there are naturals,' saidDuquette, who made a point of exposing his former intern to an arrayof front-office tasks. 'Guys that understand it and get it and thatdo things easily and efficiently. Ben was a natural baseballexecutive.'
Before long, Cherington was commuting to Latin America, checkingout prospects in the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Panama,Colombia, and Curacao, learning beisbol Spanish on the fly.
'It was a really rewarding experience, an opportunity to learnabout a new culture,' he said.
A highlight was a dinner with a part-time Dominican scout at atwo-room, tin-roofed house in a village outside of San Pedro deMacoris.
'I'll never forget that night because his wife made this feast,'Cherington said. 'Fish and vegetables and a bucketful of Presidenteon ice. It was a great night, and they couldn't have been more proudto have me there.'
What struck Cherington was that he and the scout both were RedSox employees doing the same job - finding and evaluating thetalent that eventually would wear the uniform of Young and Speaker,Cronin and Williams, Yastrzemski and Rice. What sets Cheringtonapart from his 10 predecessors is his extensive background inscouting and player development.
'There's no substitute for that,' said Ricciardi.
Scouting teenagers, particularly in foreign countries, decidedlyis more art than science but Cherington had the requisite qualities.
'Ben's a great listener,' said Thurston, who now does videoanalysis of pitching prospects for the Pirates. 'He takes everythingin, he really observes things. He's not a psychologist but he canreally read people.'
When the Red Sox were sold in 2002, Cherington was one of ahandful of front-office veterans who were retained.
'Ben's very bright, very deliberate and decisive and thorough,'said Mike Port, who served as interim GM that year.
Writing the book
When Epstein was hired, Cherington was a natural baseballsoulmate and sidekick. They both were what club president LarryLucchino calls 'hybrids,' baseball executives who are conversantwith statistical analysis while respecting old-school observationalscouting.
Epstein and Cherington spent considerable time pondering what thefarm system should look like and came away with 'The Red Sox Way,' acomprehensive manual covering everything from scouting todevelopment to playing in the middle of a pennant race before 35,000of the frenetic faithful.
Beyond the fundamental tools and the 'makeup' intangibles, thefront office wanted prospects with passion.
'If you watch a player over a period of time, no matter whatlevel they're at, you get a feeling for how much the game means tothem,' said Cherington. 'People can come from all sorts ofbackgrounds but if the game means something to them, more often thannot when they hit that first period of adversity they'll pushthrough it. The game needs to matter.'
The game mattered enormously to Epstein and Cherington, who werepart of a nightly beer-fueled spring training symposium before the2004 season at the eight-bedroom house they rented at Cape Coralwhere baseball was the sole subject. Everyone from Francona, who'djust signed on as skipper, and stats guru Bill James came by to hangout with the passionate post-grads who peopled the front office.
'There definitely were a lot of nights of argument that spring,'recalled Cherington. 'That's something that Theo encouraged all thetime. He'd walk in your office and challenge you on something andhe'd usually do it in a fun way and that was good for everyone.
'Sometimes it was in a not-so-fun way, but you knew thatafterward he still wanted you here. It wasn't personal.'
Epstein made it clear that he thought Cherington should be hissuccessor and said last week that he wouldn't have left for Chicagootherwise.
This job, especially at this time, requires someone who knows thesystem, the people, the culture, and the history and who can endurethe year-round hot seat. Naming Cherington was a major announcement,said Lucchino, but not a major surprise.
His attributes were obvious to his employers and Lucchino tickedthem off at last Tuesday's press conference: 'his trademarkdiligence and competitiveness, his remarkable work ethic, hiscommitment to excellence and to getting the job done well, hisbalance and fairness, his humility and selflessness.'
Better still, Cherington has served an unprecedented on-siteapprenticeship.
'It's not a matter of someone else coming in and getting up tospeed,' said Port.
The man goes back to the days of Jimy Williams. He knows theunrelenting spotlight that once prompted his predecessor to adoptthe King Kong escape route.
'My eyes are open to that and I know that's part of what comeswith this job,' Cherington acknowledged. 'I'm not naive.'
Duquette, who received belated credit for laying much of thefoundation for the curse-ending championship, can empathize.
'Ben will get a lot of help,' he said wryly. 'There are a lot ofassistant general managers he can depend on for their opinion.That's just the nature of this market. They follow it from dusk todawn.'
That's what Ricciardi, a Worcester native, used to warn hisToronto players about before their visits to the Fens: 'Half of thepeople yelling at you I probably went to high school with.'
Restoration project
If anything, the job has only become more pressurized during thelast decade as sports talk radio and the blogosphere make for adaily dissection of every decision.
'These jobs are not fun,' said Ricciardi. 'There's not a lot ofguys who enjoy it. It's become that kind of job because of theintense scrutiny from everybody. It's just like the society is.Instant gratification, has-to-happen-now.'
Red Sox Nation, which celebrated a renaissance seven years ago,now demands a restoration. What more suitable overseer than the manwho was in charge of developing the Ellsburys and Pedroias andPapelbons and Lesters, who had a hand in acquiring the Gonzalezesand Crawfords and Lackeys and who co-wrote the cultural manual thatevidently was misplaced last month.
'It's a lot easier taking over at a place than it is going to aplace,' observed Ricciardi. 'Ben's not coming in there trying tochange a philosophy. Theo going to Chicago, he has to incorporate aphilosophy and get people on board.'
These are not his grandmother's Red Sox, but that's where whatCherington calls the 'incredibly fortunate path' that led to hisfantasy job began on a hot summer day in the bleachers in 1979.
'There's a picture of him at that game,' his mother said. 'Allthe other kids are running around and not paying any attention andBen is sitting there riveted to the game. That's the beginning ofhow he got here.'
John Powers can be reached at jpowers @globe.com.
