In professional sports, athletes generally spend much more time with their teammates than they do with their own families during the season; eating, sleeping and traveling together for at least seven months a year.
In Major League Baseball, that means that 25 players plus an assortment of coaches and other team personnel are together from mid-to-late February until as late as October each and every year. With the diversity of personalities, it’s natural to assume that not everyone on every team is going to get along all the time.
Last season, after the Boston Red Sox completed one of the most epic collapses in MLB history, reports came out that described issues in the clubhouse that were disturbing to say the least.
While the Sox shook things up by bringing in a new general manager (Ben Cherington) and manager (Bobby Valentine), apparently the toxicity of the clubhouse hasn’t changed much.
ESPN’s Buster Olney spent time with the Red Sox this weekend during their weekend series with the Chicago Cubs. According to his observations, and conversations with team officials off the record, the Red Sox clubhouse is still a mess.
One line in particular really stood out:
The unhappiness that exists among the Boston players and staff is multilayered and deep.
Olney would not name names, and quite frankly, the entire article was very vague as to the specifics of the source of the toxicity within the Red Sox’s clubhouse.
To me, Olney spending a few hours with the team because of an obligation to ESPN doesn’t exactly qualify as a great source for airing issues about the Red Sox, but I digress.
However, just to play along, here is a list of players who could be viewed as a source of the toxicity.