Monday, February 16, 2015

Shaughnessy: Larry Lucchino On The Way Out?

Machiavelli No More?
According to Dan Shaughnessy of The Boston Globe (owned by John Henry), Red Sox President and CEO Larry Lucchino may be on his way out. An arcane power struggle is emerging behind the scenes—and the Machiavellian presence (for once) is not Lucchino. The new "Prince" is one Michael Gordon. 'Who?', you might rightly ask. Gordon is a formerly silent limited partner, who recently bought out The New York Times share of the team. Now, he's the second biggest shareholder after Henry himself. Henry has given Gordon the run of the foreign soccer team in Liverpool—and we know how much Ichabod loves "the beautiful game". Lucchino—about to turn 70—is being squeezed out of key functions and may soon be just a spectator on Yawkey Way (like the rest of us). In the past, we had been highly critical of Lucchino (particularly with regard to his feuds with Theo Epstein), but any objective assessment of his tenure has to be positive. After all, he coined the term "Evil Empire". What else does he have to do? Reducing Lucchino's role would be a big mistake in our view.