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| JOHN FARRELL |
RED SOX : BASEBALL 2014
April 2,2014.
c/o Jason Mastrodonato
The Republican
When John Farrell gets to JetBlue Park each morning during the grueling seven-week stretch known as spring training, anyone else who’s arrived before the sun rises knows not to strike up a conversation. At that time, shortly after 5 a.m., the 51-year-old manager of the Boston Red Sox needs his space.
It’s not the physical space he covets; baseball managers are used to being stuffed in closet-sized holes in the darkest, dampest parts of old stadium basements. That’s part of the gig. But Farrell needs mental liberty, room to let his mind wander and be free from the demanding job and constant distractions that come with being a celebrity, a term he may not agree with but he really has no way of avoiding after leading the lowly Bobby Valentine-led Red Sox from last place to a World Series championship.
Taking care of his mind and body are of the utmost importance for a man who has little time to do it.
Farrell loves the weight room.
“There have been periods of time after a long season when you just need to get away from some physical activity,” Farrell said. “But I’ve always run. I like to run. It’s a way that flushes my mind and gives me a chance to think. And it feels a heck of a lot better after you’re done.”
He’s made every road trip for every split squad game this spring, spending as many as eight hours in a day on a white bus filled with stale air and sweaty ballplayers, touring around the deceivingly large state of Florida. At one point during the Grapefruit League schedule, Farrell was on an 8 a.m. bus to Sarasota, arrived 90 minutes later, carried out his pregame responsibilities, managed one Red Sox squad to a 7-3 loss to the Orioles, took the 90-minute bus trip back to JetBlue Park, managed a separate group to a 13-2 loss, and finally sat down in a cramped interview room to answer reporters’ questions around 11 p.m.
His eyes drooping over, he tried to discuss the results of a relatively meaningless baseball game as best as he could, occasionally stumbling over his words and prompting those asking the questions to ask as few as possible out of respect for basic human decency.
Despite his comments the next day suggesting he wasn’t too tired, it was clear to everyone else in the room at 11 p.m. the previous night: Farrell had nothing left in the tank.
But the next day presented a new morning, and another opportunity for Farrell to clear his mind and begin a fresh day.
Usually awake by 5 a.m. – “if I’m in the gym by 6, my day is getting off on the right foot,” he says – Farrell has a routine he likes to follow.
When he arrives at the park, he gets settled, changes into his workout clothes, slides in a pair of headphones and turns up some music. He likes Bruce Springsteen, U2 and the Dire Straits, but he’ll listen to any type of classic rock. For the next 60 minutes or so, the 6-foot-4, 210-pound man puts his body to work.
No weight-lifting; Farrell isn’t trying to match his players in muscular bulk, though he has, over time, developed the kind of forearms that prompted third baseman Will Middlebrooks to describe them as being “bigger than my legs.” Frankly, Farrell doesn’t seem to care at all what he looks like. His goal is a healthy heart, and to do that he needs cardiovascular activity. He runs three miles a day, at roughly eight minutes a mile, an impressive pace for a former pitcher who has been retired for almost 20 years. Either before or after his run, he’ll mix in about four or five exercises that work his core. Sit-ups, push-ups, leg-lifts – anything that can put stress on the middle of his body, help him avoid the hula-hoop-shaped waists synonymous with baseball managers of the past and keep his heart-rate steady.
“You try to maintain some level of conditioning,” he said. “A lot of times it’s a way to just vent to yourself or just flush things out mentally. I think it’s important that you take an hour a day for yourself, just to do something for you before you go out and start to teach and compete for the remainder of the day.”
At this time of the morning, the weight room at JetBlue Park is generally closed off to players. The majority of the Red Sox’s coaching staff along with a few members of the front office try to take advantage of these precious moments, darting around the weight room like hungry carnivores in the closing minutes of an all-you-can-eat buffet.
“You have to do it quick and get it done because there are a lot of other things you need to accomplish that day,” said bullpen coach Dana Levangie, the Billy Blanks of the Red Sox’s coaching staff who has helped bench coach Torey Lovullo join him in what Lovullo calls "the best workout I’ve ever been in."
Levangie has led Lovullo away from his straight conditioning program (a lean stomach is prioritized over bulking arms, Lovullo says) and toward a more intense, CrossFit-like workout that forces him to work a variety of muscles. The idea is to maximize intensity.
“In about a 35-40 minute period of time, you take your body from 0-60 instantly,” said Lovullo, a well-liked coach who was strongly connected to the managerial opening with the Chicago Cubs last offseason. “It’s just migrating from one exercise to the next. So you do some quick cardio, hit a couple muscle groups, back to cardio and there is very limited rest. It seems to get me in better shape. By the end of it, I’m huffing and puffing.”
There’s certainly a serious nature to the workouts. Farrell doesn’t like talking while he’s in the weight room. Still, it’s generally considered a “relaxed atmosphere” each morning.
“I think we all do our best to maintain some sanity and normalcy,” Lovullo said. “It’s a way for us to get our day started early. We have to in spring training. Get the workout out of the way and basically get your day started in what I think is the right foot.
“It’s easy to get sloppy and lazy with some of your thoughts, and what it does is we all come in, all do the same thing at the same time, and we start real early.”
The players have taken notice of their body-building coaching staff – “We definitely have a team of jacked coaches,” said catcher David Ross – but it’s not their physical stature that’s impressed.
It’s the commitment that’s put into each workout, the time that’s spent with one another and the hour of baseball chatter that immediately follows in the conference room.
The coaches call it “Coffee Talk.”
“That’s a great time for us to talk about certain situations, what’s our upcoming drills we need to get done,” Farrell said. “We have kind of a master board we have items up that we cover in certain times, certainly in spring training. That’s the comradery that we have as a coaching staff. That might be at 6 in the morning, might be at 6:30 in the morning prior to our staff meeting. It’s not just ‘Coffee Talk,’ as some might refer to it as, but it allows us to challenge one another at different points of view so that when we do put ourselves in front of the team, we’ve already walked through the different scenarios that might be there.
“And it shows a sign of unity and some solidarity of 'Hey, this is the direction we’re going,' because players feel that. And we want to make sure we project that consistent message.”
Players will pop in and out of Coffee Talk to share ideas. The coaches use it as an anything-goes discussion group for ideas. General manager Ben Cherington believes in the theory that there’s always an alternative way to get things done. Innovation is necessary to get ahead, and the team likes to take chances, creatively.
Coffee Talk promotes that.
This spring, the Red Sox came up with their offensive menu for first-and-third situations, mastered their instant replay strategies and come up with trick plays during their hour of chatter.
“They get here so early,” said Ross, who has been on six different major league teams. “I don’t know if they have sleeping problems or what, but they’re here really early. They get their work in and their workout in. They take a lot of pride.
“It’s a personality thing. It’s a hard-work personality they all have. It’s the hardest working coaching staff I’ve ever been around, by far. There’s not even a second place that I’ve seen in my career. They work hard in everything they do. They take a lot of pride in their body. They take a lot of pride in their work. They take a lot of pride in doing the best they can to help us win.”
The season started on Monday, with the schedule switching from mostly day games to mostly night games. The Red Sox coaches will have to find a new routine to keep in shape. They'll have to set a new time for Coffee Talk.
But that shouldn't be a problem.
"I'm usually at three to four cups a day," Farrell said.
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