The (dis)passion of John Henry

The group still faced a formidable obstacle. Its members were viewed as outsiders, people who didn't understand Boston the way some of the other bidders did, bidders such as local parking lot baron Frank McCourt. And the bidding process turned byzantine, with shifting alliances and balking investors. But with Henry providing most of the financing and commissioner Bud Selig on their side, their bid of (gulp!) $695 million was accepted on Dec. 20, 2001.

That didn't mean they were immediately accepted by Red Sox Nation. "We were told all the things we couldn't do," Lucchino says. "We couldn't add on to Fenway because it was going to sink into the ground. We couldn't change the Green Monster -- that was sacrosanct. But John encouraged us to think differently, to think for ourselves. And because we all had small-market experience, we brought a tremendous work ethic with us." And a certain play ethic as well. On one of the early days of the new regime, Henry took a photo of Lucchino sleeping in his office and posted it in the lunchroom under a note that read: NEW RED SOX CEO HARD AT WORK.

Once the triumvirate of Henry, Lucchino and Werner got to work, they discovered untapped revenue streams by spending money to make money: adding seats on an almost yearly basis, buying surrounding properties to make Fenway a small city unto itself. They pulled off the neat trick of selling lots of signage without ruining the character of the ballpark, and they turned NESN, the cable network they acquired in the Red Sox sale, into a cash cow that's the envy of baseball. "You can't win in any sport without heavily concentrating on revenue generation," Henry says in an e-mail. "You have to be relentless in that regard if you are going to be able to afford the kind of players you need to compete at the highest level. There simply is no way around that."

Asked to describe his management style, Henry writes, "I'm a tough manager. I question almost every assumption in what are hopefully pragmatic ways. The more you question, the more you learn and the more the person you are questioning learns ... More than anything else, management is a question of ensuring you have the right people in place and they have the resources necessary to be successful."

The club Henry inherited didn't have either the right general manager (unpopular Dan Duquette) or the right manager (old-school Grady Little) in place. The Red Sox thought they had a deal with Moneyball hero Billy Beane after the 2002 season, but he famously decided to stay with the A's, so the Red Sox took a chance on Lucchino's young protege, Theo Epstein.

"Early on in my tenure," Epstein says, "I made a couple of decisions in a row that backfired on us. John and I were talking on the phone, and John drew a parallel to his other business, noting that in the world of stocks, there are two ways to react in the face of poor results. Some abandon their beliefs and adopt any new approach, searching for a quick fix. Others cling even tighter to their core beliefs and ride out the storm. The former group, he said, inevitably fails, while the second group prospers in the long run. I still think of that conversation to this day in tough times."

As for Little, well, he did get the Sox to the postseason in 2003. But then came Game 7 of the ALCS in Yankee Stadium, when he sent Pedro Martinez out to pitch one more inning, the eighth, with the Red Sox up 5-2. As calm and peaceful as Henry is, he can get angry. "Can we fire him right now?" he asked Lucchino. The rest, including Little, was history.

To replace him, the Red Sox interviewed several candidates, including Joe Maddon, but Henry was sold on ex-Phillies manager Terry Francona, who was raised in the old school but embraced the new school. "There has been a time or two when things have been really rough," Francona says, "and he has sent me an incredibly encouraging e-mail. It's always in the middle of the night, so I know he's not sleeping either. He is a quiet gentleman who wants to win very badly. I like that!"

Another key hire was pure Henry: iconoclastic statistician Bill James. His lifework has been to take some of the guesswork out of baseball decisions, the way Henry himself had taken the guesswork out of soybean trading. James actually came up with a way to determine how a player's lack of hustle had affected the team. And one of his first discoveries for the Red Sox was that a first baseman released by the Twins after the 2002 season -- David Ortiz -- had a much higher "secondary" average (which basically measures bases gained) than his batting average, i.e., he was undervalued.

Ortiz, of course, was nothing short of legendary in Boston's epic 2004 postseason, when all the elements came together and the Sox came back from a 3-0 deficit to the Yankees in the ALCS and then swept the Cardinals, Henry's boyhood favorites. Werner loves to recall the plane ride back from St. Louis. "We were all riding in first class, and we have the World Series trophy cradled between us. I didn't think we could ever be happier -- until we saw the reception waiting for us at Logan Airport when we landed at 4 a.m."

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"I instantly took a liking to him," Werner says. "We shared the same values, one of which was the preservation of Fenway."

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But the times haven't always been that good. Patriots owner Bob Kraft had warned Henry about the pressure of defending the title, and at the end of the 2005 season, a frustrated Epstein walked out -- in a gorilla suit to disguise himself -- over his simmering, almost biblical feud with Lucchino.

At an emotional news conference that November, Henry blamed himself for Epstein's resignation, saying, "Maybe I'm not fit to be principal owner of the Boston Red Sox." But then he began a reconciliation process that smoothed over the tensions and ultimately resulted in the 2007 World Series trophy.

In fact, Henry feels that his proudest accomplishment is that title. He writes: "Winning in 2004 was heartrending -- deeply emotional -- because Sox fans had waited so long ... but ... the second championship proved that we had the right people in place and the right philosophy."

Not everybody applauds the Red Sox's success, however. Some people see a sort of hypocrisy in the way former small-market executives complain about the unfairness of revenue sharing. Under MLB's current system, all teams kick in 31 percent of their local revenues to a pot that is equally distributed to all 30 teams, meaning the large-market teams contribute more. Plus, revenues from sources such as national broadcast contracts are disproportionately allocated, so lower-revenue teams get a bigger piece of the pie. Henry has criticized that system and has been fined $500,000 by Selig for his critiques. "Listen, I have nothing but admiration for what the Red Sox have done," says Stu Sternberg, the Rays' principal owner. "But when they complain about sharing their revenues, you have to ask, do they care more about themselves or about the good of the game?"

Ah, but John Henry is a capitalist, after all. Describing the partnership between the Fenway Sports Group and Roush Racing, he writes, "One reason investing in Roush appealed to Fenway was our frustration over baseball's economic system. We began to look for revenues outside of baseball." As for purchasing Liverpool FC, a franchise with uncanny parallels to the Red Sox, he writes, "We've driven revenues as far as baseball will allow, and here was an opportunity to compete globally in a league without borders."

"Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but -- I hope -- into a better shape." --Estella

Goodness knows, Red Sox fans have suffered over the years. You might think the two titles would've relaxed them, but they're even more intent on winning. And that's fine with Henry. Here's how he answered the e-mail query "Sox fans can be so demanding that they can seem ungrateful. How closely do you listen to them?"

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Sox fans stew because, even after 10 years, they don't really know John Henry.

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"I honestly haven't met ungrateful Sox fans. The most common thing said to me is 'Thank you.' They're grateful that we were able to save Fenway ... They're grateful that we have put solid teams together every year ... But they give us that ability."

Even though Henry is still considered one of the "new owners," the Fenway faithful show their appreciation by worrying about him. They fret that his newfound obsession with Liverpool FC will distract him. They're concerned that his beautiful 32-year-old new wife, Linda Pizzuti, will somehow upset the chemistry that has proved so successful in turning the Red Sox into a perennial powerhouse. They stew because, even after 10 years, they don't really know John Henry. Which is sort of the idea: The Red Sox zealously guard his space and time. That's why most of his interviews are conducted in the ether of cyberspace.

His multiminded devotion to all his interests inspires his colleagues, which is why the Red Sox lead the majors in workaholics. His decency is also noted and appreciated. Bill James describes a little thing Henry does that means a lot to him: "I use a different e-mail address than the normal Red Sox account, which irritates the hell out of some higher-ups. But John remembers. Once in a great while, he'll forget and send something to my Red Sox account, and I won't answer it, but then he'll apologize in the next e-mail for using the wrong e-mail. Think about it."

Dispassion, check. Passion, check. Both have been instrumental in Henry's success as a businessman. But so has compassion. Perhaps the best way to think of the Red Sox is as a symphony orchestra, with Henry as the conductor of the talented, occasionally fractious sections. (That was Manny Ramirez on the bass drum.) He knows the score for every instrument; he wields the baton with energy and verve; and he makes sure that everyone takes a bow.

"I was very glad afterwards to have had the interview." --Pip, in the original ending of Great Expectations.

The verbal testimony of others, together with the bounteous words of Henry himself, should be enough to give you a sense of the man. But feeling a bit like a Red Sox fan who calls in to complain about Carl Crawford, I wasn't quite satisfied. During the second game of the recent three-game Yankees series at Fenway, Henry and Werner were making an appearance in the NESN booth on behalf of the Jimmy Fund, so I waited in ambush to introduce myself. "Come by tomorrow night," he said.

And that was how I found myself in his stately box with his kindly attendant, looking down on Henry and Werner in the field box alongside the Red Sox dugout, reliving old times with 2004 folk hero Kevin Millar. From Lucchino's box next door, visitor Phil Mickelson looked over at me, wondering what I was doing there. (What I was doing was calculating how much money a year the Red Sox get from the 269 seats atop the Green Monster: $200 for tickets and concessions x 269 seats x 81 games = $4,357,800.) For a few lonely minutes there, I thought Henry might not come up at all, but at the end of the third inning, he made his way upstairs.

When he arrived, he graciously invited me to sit beside him in the front row. As a conversation starter, I mentioned my own fondness for the Senior League. "I was so intimidated by Dick Williams," said Henry of the late Hall of Fame manager. "At one point I called him from Arizona all excited to tell him I could get Graig Nettles. All he said was, 'I don't want Graig Nettles.' So I got him Toby Harrah instead. We had Dave Kingman, Mickey Rivers, Rollie Fingers, Al Hrabosky. Great times."

Henry tracked a foul ball carefully to make sure it didn't hit any fans, then talked about the injuries he had seen over the years from balls hit into the stands. He said he thinks one of the best baseball stories ever is Dustin Pedroia -- "our 5'8" cleanup hitter" -- and, as if on cue, Pedroia hit a two-run homer off Yankees righthander A.J. Burnett to give the Sox a 2-1 lead and bring Henry to his feet in appreciation. In between rounds of visitors, we chatted about the new "Temperature" metric James had just concocted (at Henry's suggestion) to measure how hot or cold a player really is.

The conversations were brief, snippets really, but dizzying and delightful. A mention of the new Stan Musial book led to an anecdote about Joe DiMaggio, which led to ...

"Here's a story. When I was owner of the Marlins, I agreed to participate in an old-timers game to benefit the Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital. Al Hrabosky [a lefty known as the Mad Hungarian for good reason] comes up to me before the inning I'm supposed to bat and tells me he's going to throw me two strikes and then a ball behind my back, at which point he wants me to charge the mound like I'm angry at him. So spindly me gets up, and part of me is thinking, I could get killed, and part of me is thinking, Wait, there's a runner on second and we're behind by one run, so maybe I should try to get a hit.

"Well, I survive the first two pitches, and sure enough, he throws the ball behind me. I charge the mound, but the grass is wet, and just as I reach the mound, my feet slip out from under me and I slide feetfirst between Hrabosky's legs. He looks down at me and asks, 'Are you all right?' I was fine ... except for my dignity."

I parted after the sixth inning, just before the Yankees took a 4-2 lead. I watched the bottom of the ninth from the top of Fenway, along the rightfield line. The Red Sox loaded the bases against Mariano Rivera with two outs, bringing AL batting leader Adrian Gonzalez to the plate. But I wasn't looking at either one of them. I was looking down at the thin man sitting alone in his box above the field, riding on every pitch. When
Gonzalez struck out looking, I could feel Henry's anguish -- even from a distance. The wealth, the trophies, the years all melted away, and he looked like one of the thousands of disappointed kids in Fenway.

I don't know how else to describe it. Maybe Dickens could.

"Now I return to this young fellow. And the communication I have got to make is, that he has great expectations." --Mr. Jaggers

Steve Wulf is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. Follow The Mag on Twitter: @ESPNMag.