(Traditionally, an MLB Notebook features a smattering of baseball-related topics from throughout the week. Yet with this week’s release of an in-depth profile of Red Sox owner John Henry, there’s just too much going on there to care about anything else. Besides, does anybody *really* want to read or talk about Henry’s (now sub) .500 baseball team, anyway? Yeah, I didn’t think so…)
It’s rather fitting that the Financial Times profile of Red Sox owner John Henry starts out with literal alarm bells sounding at Fenway Park…
“Within 10 minutes of meeting John Henry for the first time, alarm bells started ringing. … The fire alarm began to pulse urgently, and an automated woman’s voice spoke over the intercom: ‘This is an emergency. Please locate the nearest exit and vacate the premises immediately.’ I had come to Fenway for an off-the-record meeting with Henry, to learn about how he manages a crisis. Now I was watching him up close.”
Spoiler alert, (profile author) Sara Germano, the answer is… not well.
At least not when it comes to the baseball team that Henry used to turn himself from “sports team owner” John Henry into “sports business mogul” John Henry.
In Germano’s well-detailed profile of Henry, we didn’t learn any surprising or earth-shattering new details about him. What we got, instead, was further affirmation of the man we’ve been watching Henry become in recent years.
John Henry is now a full-fledged Boston sports villain, and he doesn’t seem to care.
“Because fans expect championships almost annually, they easily become frustrated and are not going to buy into what the odds actually are: one in 20 or one in 30,” Henry told Germano in the most publicized quote of the story.
In other words, Red Sox fans, John Henry is telling you that winning isn’t probable, so you shouldn’t even bother to expect it.
The problem with that logic, John? You yourself defied those odds and rewrote the playbook — and, by extension, raised the expectations. It’s true that only one out of the 30 teams in Major League Baseball can win a championship each year. And if every team won once, that would represent a different champion for thirty straight years.
Last time I checked, though, the Red Sox haven’t won one World Series in the last three decades. They’ve won four, and they didn’t even need 30 years to do it… only 14. Today in 2024, the Red Sox have won 20 percent of all the World Series played in the last 20 years.
How did they win those championship, exactly? I’ll let Germano tell you herself…
"In every one of the Henry-era World Series wins, the Red Sox payroll had ranked between first and third highest overall in MLB,” she wrote.
So, if my logic is correct, John, it appears that… spending more money puts you in better position to win in the longterm? What a novel concept…
Nonetheless, it’s one Henry is clearly no longer interested in embracing. Instead, Henry is fully focused on expanding his Fenway Sports Group empire. The Boston Red Sox, the very team that started it all, be damned…
But Henry doesn’t see it that way, of course.
“There would be a risk (of stretching ourselves too thin) if FSG was not so deep and strong in personnel,” he told Germano.
That is, after all, why the Red Sox, Liverpool F.C., and Pittsburgh Penguins are all the reigning champions in their respective sports. Oh… wait a minute, they aren’t. The Red Sox miss the playoffs more than they make it these days, the Penguins just missed the playoffs for the second straight year, and Liverpool has finished fifth and third in the Premier League table the past two seasons.
So, if FSG is as deep and capable as you’re telling us, John… why isn’t anyone, you know, winning?
And as for Tom Werner’s little “full throttle” slip up and his own “it’s expensive to have baseball players” gaffe? John thinks you’re all just being petty…
“(Werner’s comment) 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. … You have to base acquisitions and dispositions on the future, not the past. That is unpopular generally,” Henry told Germano.
Well, first of all, the reason it overshadowed everything else that was said this winter, John… is because it was a flat out lie your ownership group offered up unprompted. A lie, mind you, that you and your team didn’t even remotely try to back up. So, if you don’t want to be called to the mat like that, then don’t lie to your fanbase…
As for the false premise that people are universally calling for the team “mortgage the future,” tell me this, John… how exactly would signing deals to keep players like Justin Turner, Adam Duvall, James Paxton, or any other legitimate big league player that you could have signed to a short-term deal, be mortgaging the future? Nobody I’ve read or heard is calling for the team to unload Marcelo Mayer, Roman Anthony, Kyle Teel etc. to pursue a championship this season. They’re only asking you to spend a relatively small amount of money on the baseball team you own.
The only future those deals would have been mortgaging were your future ownership stake in the PGA Tour and whichever NBA or NFL team you decide to buy next…
I’ve said it before, and I know I’ll have to say it again and again and again: John, if you are no longer interested in playing ball with the rest of the league, then take your bat and go home. The reason people have such high expectations for these Red Sox is the investment you put into the team from the get go. You break it (people's expectations), you buy it (rosters that compete perennially for championships). You cannot have it both ways, and if you can’t take the heat, then get out of the kitchen…
It’s been truly astonishing to watch Henry transform from beloved owner of one of the cornerstone franchises in American sports into an inconsiderate, out-of-touch, cold and robotic businessman.
Today, Henry doesn’t even want to stand behind the words coming out of his own mouth…
“A commodities billionaire by profession, Henry’s stature in the global sports industry is matched only by his reluctance to speak about it. He agreed to spend some time with me in person on the condition he not be quoted directly, instead answering questions by email,” Germano wrote.
I remember being in the Red Sox’s clubhouse as they were celebrating clinching their AL East title in 2017. As I was dodging champagne rain, I noticed someone standing off in the corner away from the main celebration… Red Sox owner John Henry.
I don’t remember the exact question I asked him, but judging by the context of his answer (I pulled up the saved radio cut I had in my system) it was something to the effect of “What’s been the difference in your team’s recent success?”
“What’s different is that we spent too much time recently going between first and last,” Henry told me with a laugh amidst the nearby chaos, referring to the Sox’s stretch of three last-place finishes in four seasons from 2012 to 2015. “So to win back-to-back (division titles) is really gratifying.”
Fast forward to today (when, fittingly, his team has spent too much time finishing last in three of the past four seasons… again). Do you think John Henry could name the entire 26-man roster of his own baseball team? Two thirds of it? Half? Do we really think he actually knows who guys like David Hamilton, Cam Booser and Jamie Westbrook are (no offense, guys!)? No, of course not…
To him, those names don’t represent baseball players, or even people. They represent figures on a spreadsheet — dollars figures, specifically — and cheap dollar figures, at that.
It all makes me sad. In the past, it's made me frustrated, and it made me angry, but now I’m just… sad.
No, certainly not for Henry, Werner or Sam Kennedy, who have firmly made their own beds here. I’m sad for, well… kids like a young Gethin Coolbaugh who grew up in New England and found the late 90’s/early 2000s Boston Red Sox as a source of joy that kindled a life-long passion.
When the Red Sox won the World Series for the first time in 86 years in 2004, a 12-year-old Gethin ran around the house screaming like a chicken with its head cut off in the middle of the night (again, I’m really sorry for waking you up like that, mom. No, the house wasn’t on fire and I wasn’t dying…). I remember having to go to bed on a school night a week or so prior, but still listening to Curt Schilling pitch himself into the history books in Game 6 of the ALCS against the Yankees on my radio. I still remember that night, staring expectantly at that radio on my windowsill so, so vividly.
Those were some of the best memories of my childhood, and they’re a big part of the reason I’m sitting here right now getting paid to write this column and living out my wildest dreams by covering the very sports teams I grew up cheering my heart and lungs out for, living and dying with every win and every loss.
But now, because of John Henry — the greatest owner in Red Sox history, who helped light the same fire and love for baseball, and for Red Sox baseball, in me that I’m now angrily breathing back at him today — those kids like me will be turning somewhere other than the Boston Red Sox and the wonderful game of baseball to fill that void.
What a damned shame that is.
Henry’s not selling
At one point in the profile, Germano asked Henry (again, by email, because John is too afraid of his own words…) if he would ever sell the Red Sox.
You’re not going to like the answer, Red Sox fans…
“My wife and I live and work in Boston,” Henry told Germano. “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.”
There you have it. The Henrys aren’t selling their team… sorry, I mean their “asset.”
Because, at the end of the day, that’s all the Red Sox are to them: a business they own, and not what they actually are… a living, breathing sports franchise that no one person could ever truly own.
No matter how successful Henry’s ownership tenure has been, the Red Sox will always belong to Boston, first and foremost.
Sorry, John, but your billions will never be able to change that reality. Not that you even care…
Germano’s profile paints a detailed picture that confirms exactly what so many have accused Henry of in recent years: not prioritizing baseball and the Red Sox. Henry himself told Germano that he would describe his career as “one thing leading to another.” His wife, Linda, told Germano she calls them “quests,” while Henry himself thinks of them as “steps.”
The author details a meeting in June of 2023 in New York City for baseball owners to discuss the relocation of the Athletics from Oakland to Las Vegas…
“Henry had something different on his mind. Just a week beforehand, the commissioner of golf’s US-based PGA Tour and the governor of the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) had announced a plan to merge … Seated in a midtown skyscraper with a half-dozen of his fellow billionaires — all men, all American — at the MLB meeting, he saw a group of like-minded titans. … Henry started asking around the room: would you put up some funds to invest in golf? How about you?”
And again, when Germano runs into Henry at JetBlue Park at the outset of spring training…
“I mentioned the $3bn (Strategic Sports Group) investment, which the players on the PGA Tour Policy board had just voted to approve, creating a new commercial entity for the sport. Henry’s eyes lit up. He looked delighted to be asked about what he described as a fascinating new project, but the bustle of the official start of the Red Sox season cut us short.”
Sorry that your silly little baseball team kept you from your true lifelong love of golf (in reality, making money), John (a game, by the way, that Kennedy told Germano isn't even one of Henry's hobbies...).
Oh, and when the scene in the story shifted shortly after to a meeting of the entire Red Sox organization in Fort Myers, Germano notes that Alex Cora, Werner, Kennedy and new CBO Craig Breslow all addressed the players. Meanwhile, “Henry stayed in his seat throughout, clapping at intervals and gazing placidly over the crowd.” He would again decline to speak to assembled reporters shortly afterward, and as Werner went on tell Germano, both he and Henry didn’t have much time to chat before having to whisk away to a lunch meeting with the PGA Tour’s European counterpart…
Germano also states at another point in the article that a “near miss” business deal that didn’t go through with the soybean business Henry’s father left him when he was younger “sparked his obsession with divorcing human emotion from market moves.”
See, Red Sox fans? To John Henry, there is no “Red Sox Nation” — there is only a Boston “market” that contains consumers, and the product you just so happened to consume that he saw an opportunity to cash in on is baseball.
He doesn’t care about you anymore.
He Just. Doesn’t. Care.
So why should you?
If the owner of your baseball team doesn’t care whether or not they win or lose, then why on earth should you?
It’s your time to shine, Red Sox fans. And right now, the best way to do that in my opinion is… to vanish into thin air.
Don’t go to the ballpark. Don’t watch any games. Don’t buy any jerseys. Want your fill of good baseball? Go watch the Phillies, the Yankees, the Dodgers, etc… there are plenty of other teams to pick from that are actually trying to win baseball games and win a World Series this year.
In case you hadn’t heard, the Boston Celtics are in the NBA Finals. They’re probably going to win the NBA Finals, in fact. Watch them on Sunday instead of the Red Sox’s game against the White Sox. I know that’s what I’ll be doing…
Heck, even as I’m writing this story, I’ve got Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final on my television. I know Bruins fans might not be thrilled about the matchup, and I’m still recovering from having to listen to Paul Maurice during that second-round series, but Panthers-Oilers should produce a fun Cup Final.
It’s 2024. There are plenty of compelling sports games, stories and athletes to pay attention to around the country — and the world — that are available to you at the click of a remote, the click of a mouse or the tap of a finger on a smartphone.
And John Henry’s Boston Red Sox? They ain’t one of ‘em…
This “boycott the Red Sox” concept isn’t new. It’s been a popular refrain for many of you in the BSJ comment section. But the reality is, not nearly enough Red Sox fans are taking part to make enough of a difference…
Boston’s attendance for the 2024 season ranks 12th in the majors, averaging 31,671 fans. The Sox are one of just 11 teams to top the one million fan mark with teams averaging around 30 games at home so far this season. At 1,013,485 total fans through 32 games, the Sox rank ninth in the league.
Is it a capacity crowd? No, but it’s close enough that it doesn’t represent an embarrassment — or worse, a loss of revenue — that Henry will care about.
Sure, many of those fans (certainly a lot more than there used to be) are from out of town, and there’s not much you can do about that. But a stadium that’s half full only with primarily visiting fans is going to be much more alarming to Henry than a stadium that’s full of half visiting, and half Red Sox fans…
Now, I’ve never been one to tell other people what to do with their money. Who am I to do that? If you just love Fenway, just love baseball, then hey, I totally get it. Do what makes you happy, and more power to you.
But to the diehards, I issue this challenge: Want your baseball team back? Go out and take it… by spending the most valuable currency you have, your time, on anything but John Henry’s waste-of-time baseball team until the message finally gets driven home to him in the only place he’ll truly feel it: his wallet.
Otherwise, nothing will ever change. And again, that would be a damned shame…
Gethin Coolbaugh is a columnist for Boston Sports Journal. Follow him @GethinCoolbaugh on X/Twitter.