Terry Francona’s interview to replace Manny Acta as Indians manager took place this morning in Cleveland, as the team’s official Twitter account revealed:
Terry Francona arrived at 8:15AM ET today. Even spent some time on the field with Chris Antonetti watching our employee softball game.
Everything points to Francona being the Indians’ first choice, with Sandy Alomar also going through the interview process (and effusively praising Francona along the way) as the in-house fallback option.
Baseball is a young man’s game. Whereas, a few short years ago, teams went into battle with a lot of guys with ten or twelve years of experience under their belt, these days such veterans are a dying breed. Whether you chalk it up to teams favoring youth because youth is less expensive, the game simply favoring younger, more athletic players, the decline in PED use among ballplayers or some combination of all three, the fact is that it’s better to be 23 in Major League Baseball these days than 33.
But Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner is an exception.
Turner is 33 — he turns 34 in November — yet he remains at or near the top of his game. It’s been a shorter season than usual for him due to an injury that cost him all of April and part of May, but his production when healthy remains at a near-MVP level. He’s hitting .318/.413/.525 on the year, and his return coincided with the Dodgers shaking off their early-season doldrums. Now, with his help, they are on the verge of yet another NL West title.
Not only that, but he’s doing that while holding down a second job!
