Trenni Casey and Phil Perry react to Red Sox owner John Henry’s comments in an interview with the Financial Times that the expectations of the team’s fans to win a championship every year are unrealistic.
Here's news many Red Sox fans won't want to hear: John Henry has no plans to sell the team.
Granting his first lengthy interview in years to the Financial Times via e-mail, Henry discussed proposals to take a stake in the PGA Tour, as well as the status of his other holdings in Fenway Sports Group, but of primary interest locally are his thoughts on the Red Sox, and he shared many, starting with whether he intends to sell.
"My wife and I live and work in Boston," Henry said. "We are committed to the city, the region. So the Sox are not going to come up for sale. We generally don't sell assets."
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Some other highlights:
- Henry held firm on the club's decision to avoid spending heavily in free agency and suggested the fans hold unrealistic expectations.
"Because fans expect championships almost annually," he said, "they easily become frustrated and are not going to buy into what the odds actually are: one in 20 or one in 30."
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- He thought the reaction to chairman Tom Werner's comments about going "full throttle" this winter were overblown, but he also seemed to misunderstand fan anger over the state of the big league club.
"(Werner's comments) overshadowed every other word, paragraph and interview of the winter because it reaches so deeply into the false belief that many fans and media have that you should mortgage the future each year for the present," he said. "You have to base acquisitions and dispositions on the future, not the past. That is unpopular generally."
Counterpoint: It's not that Red Sox fans believe the team should mortgage the future, but that Henry should show more interest in the present.
- Henry reiterated a point he has made in the past about his reticence to address fan and media concerns directly.
"I don't think people in my position can win publicly -- your words are often used against you -- so the less I say I generally think the better," he said.
