BOSTON — Red Sox manager John Farrell sat down in front of a group of reporters Friday afternoon in the interview room at Fenway Park. He looked shaken, exhausted and vulnerable.
“I know we usually start out with the injury report, and I’ll probably start with myself on this one,” Farrell said, his voice cracking midsentence. “Monday’s surgery for the hernia revealed that I have lymphoma.”
It’s been a tumultuous season for the Red Sox, but nothing — not the losing streaks, not the pitching woes, not Wade Miley’s dugout blowup, not Hanley Ramirez’s left field issues, not Pablo Sandoval’s Instagram exploits, not even the usual cuts and bruises that come with a 162-game grind — could have prepared the organization for the news that its manager has been diagnosed with cancer.
Everything stopped. Nothing else mattered.
Even at his weakest, Farrell — an imposing figure with an authoritative presence — managed to lighten the mood, joking about his weight and his inability to play Nostradamus.
“Oh darn, if I knew that, let’s go look for some wallets out in the parking lot,” Farrell said laughing Friday when asked how long it would have taken to detect his lymphoma if he hadn’t undergone hernia surgery Monday in Detroit. “Jesus Christmas. I can’t predict that.”
Farrell’s positive attitude and self-ribbing only continued after the Red Sox pounded 21 hits Friday night in a 15-1 win over the Seattle Mariners, as he joked with acting manager Torey Lovullo that it took him leaving the dugout for Boston’s offense to have its best performance of the season.
And the skipper was able to laugh again Saturday afternoon, when Boston’s offense one-upped itself. The Red Sox compiled 26 hits — their most since 2005 — in a 22-10 victory over Felix Hernandez and Co.
“It was the first stop I made, I went into his office,” Lovullo said with a smile immediately after Saturday’s blowout win. “He’s here, obviously in very good spirits, and that’s the most important thing to all of us right now. We laughed and joked and said some funny things, but I think he’s really excited about what’s happening.
“He’s watching closely. He’s monitoring this personally because guys are coming up into the clubhouse to get a drink or something, and he’s able to kind of get a hands-on explanation as to what’s going on.
“He’s sharing information with me that I don’t even know about that these guys are sharing with him in between innings and in between at-bats. He’s real excited, he’s very loose and, like I said, that’s the most important thing.”
The Red Sox aren’t going to light up the scoreboard every game. Even if they did, no one ever defeated lymphoma with a baseball bat. But the team’s energy and desire to rally around its manager have added a much-needed positive layer to an otherwise somber weekend for the organization.
“It makes a lot of us feel like somebody’s watching over us and giving us some good luck that we finally deserve,” Lovullo said after Saturday’s win. “(Friday’s) news still hits hard with several of us and I don’t think that’ll ever go away until we know that John’s healthy and cured. That’s going to stay with us.
“We’ve had a wide range of emotions, but what we’ve done is we separate it at game time. When we get between the white lines, we go out there and play baseball and these guys deserve a lot of credit for being able to compartmentalize and separate things.”
Baseball doesn’t necessarily heal wounds, visible or otherwise, but it has a knack for helping the healing process. Just ask Farrell — a man whose team helped the city of Boston recover following the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and whose team now intends to help him in his own battle with lymphoma.
Thumbnail photo via Joe Nicholson/USA TODAY Sports Images
