Former Cleveland Guardians manager Terry Francona had a very successful tenure with the team, managing Cleveland for a franchise-record 11 seasons.
Following the 2023 season, he stepped down as the franchise’s all-time winningest manager, leading the Guardians to a club-record nine winning seasons, four American League Central Division titles, and the 2016 American League pennant.
This was the most recent chapter of the 64-year-old’s storied professional baseball career that has lasted over 40 years.
This career was recognized on Saturday night, when Francona was named one of three winners of the 2024 William J. Slocum-Jack Lang Award by the New York Chapter of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.
Francona’s professional baseball career began in 1980, when he was a first-round pick in the MLB Draft by the Montréal Expos (now Washington Nationals). He played for five different teams in 10 years, hitting .274 with 474 hits, 74 doubles, 16 home runs, 143 RBI, and just 119 strikeouts in 707 games.
After working in the Chicago White Sox’s player development system, Arizona Fall League, and Dominican Republic Professional Baseball League, he was the Detroit Tigers’ third base coach in 1996.
He then managed the Philadelphia Phillies from 1997 through 2000, was a special assistant in Cleveland’s front office and managed Team USA’s Baseball World Cup team in 2001, and was the Texas Rangers’ and Oakland Athletics’ bench coach in 2002 and 2003, respectively.
Francona then served as the Boston Red Sox’s manager from 2004 through 2011, winning two World Series titles at the helm. He was a baseball analyst at ESPN in 2012 before being named Cleveland’s manager for the 2013 season.
After winning 1,950 regular-season games and 44 postseason games as a Major League manager, Francona appears destined to become a Hall-of-Famer soon.
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