GOODYEAR, Ariz. — Alyssa Francona had several missed calls from her dad. Then her sister texted her.
“Dad’s trying to get in touch with you,” the message read. “Be supportive. He’s really excited.”
Alyssa — the eldest daughter of longtime MLB manager Terry Francona — wasn’t sure what to make of that. Her dad was happily retired and feeling healthy for the first time in years. He was traveling more, his golf game was improving and by all accounts, his time with family and friends was fulfilling.
If Francona, 65, was itching to manage again, he wasn’t showing it.
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Not surprisingly, his daughters were happy that Francona seemed done with the grind of the game, but they knew their dad better than anyone: He loved being in the dugout and in the clubhouse. And there is “nothing like that ninth inning,” Francona would later say.
Alyssa called her sister Leah before calling her dad back.
“She said the Cincinnati guys were out there talking to him,” Alyssa recalled recently. “Don’t burst his bubble.”
KIM BOCHY HAD a similar experience in 2022.
The wife of manager Bruce Bochy was looking forward to her husband’s retirement. Bochy, 69, quit baseball after the 2019 season, but the two hadn’t fully enjoyed their newfound freedom yet as the COVID-19 pandemic soon shut the world down, and, like Francona, Bochy had various health issues to address. Just as the two were beginning to enjoy the fruits of a lifetime in the game, new Texas Rangers GM Chris Young came calling.
“Once CY came to visit — once he walked through the door — I was like, ‘Oh my gosh,’ I think this is not going to be good,” Kim Bochy recalled. “In my perspective, I was very, very content and very happy being done. He was too. I tried to talk him out of it, I did my best to talk him out of taking the job.
“Why do you want to go back? You’ve won three World Series, you’ve done everything in this game. Why do you want to go back? And he said, ‘I want to win another World Series.'”
Kim eventually came around to the idea of her husband’s return and it didn’t take long for Bochy to accomplish that goal, leading the Rangers to their first title in 2023. Now Francona has the same desire to restore glory to a franchise as the new manager of the Cincinnati Reds. When Francona left the Cleveland Guardians dugout after the 2023 season, he swore he was done. Baseball disagreed.
“I wasn’t planning on coming back,” he told ESPN. “I really wasn’t.”
BY THE TIME Francona left Cleveland, after 10 years, his body was breaking down. Ask him what ailed him the most, and he shakes his head.
“That’s the problem, there were about 12 things,” Francona said with a smile from his office in spring training. “I got both knees, both hips, my right shoulder. About a week after the season in Cleveland, I had my shoulder replaced and I had three hernias.
“I’m on blood thinners because of the blood clots. So when we fly, f—, my right leg, we take off, my pants fit. When we land, my pants don’t fit.”
Those issues finally caught up with him. He felt he was relying too much on his coaches and wasn’t fulfilling his No.1 rule — one that possibly impacted his health.
“I think if you’re managing correctly, you’re putting the players and the organization first and you’re putting yourself like a distant last,” Francona said. “I needed to be away. When you know you need to be away, you’re probably late.”
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Francona’s short retirement consisted of time with his grandkids, golf trips to Mexico, a vacation to Hawaii and taking in some college football.
“I wasn’t married to my phone anymore,” Francona said. “My biggest decision was should I get another cup of coffee?”
He even offered to watch the grandkids while his daughters vacationed in Europe last summer.
“I almost came back then,” Francona quipped.
Watching a 7-year-old and a 9-year-old might have been more taxing than managing, according to his daughter. Shortly after arriving in Europe, Alyssa texted one of the kids, asking what grandpa was doing.
“She’s like, ‘Grandpa needed a rest day,'” Alyssa said with a laugh. “He’s taking a day off and we’re like 48 hours into what is a 10-day trip!”
Francona told that story at baseball’s winter meetings in December, not long after taking the job in Cincinnati. The Reds had flown down to Tucson to see him about their opening after the team had let David Bell go near the end of the season. Francona was “enjoying some beers” at a football game when he got the call that Cincinnati was interested — former broadcaster Marty Brennaman first broached it to him — and soon after, Reds president of baseball operations Nick Krall and GM Brad Meador were at his house. A day later, owner Bob Castellini was there, as well.
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“I’m sitting in my rocking chair talking to them and I caught myself really early a couple times,” Francona recalled. “I said, ‘we’ could do this or ‘we’ could do that. I’m like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down.'”
But he wasn’t premature. The job was his if he wanted it — and on Oct. 4, he accepted it. After four years in the Philadelphia Phillies dugout, eight more in Boston and 10 in Cleveland followed by a one-year sabbatical, Terry “Tito” Francona was back. The news came unexpectedly even to his own family.
“We were making jokes about his golf score,” Alyssa said. “If he started shooting over 80 that he may take a job, but from all accounts he was shooting well on the course too. It was a little surprising.”
MANY OF FRANCONA’S contemporaries, starting with Bochy, were less surprised. Even after accomplishing his goal of winning another World Series after returning, Bochy is still going, with his 70th birthday coming early in the 2025 season.
“I just went through it,” he said. “I know the feeling. You get out. You miss it. You think ‘Gosh, I got out too early.’ All those thoughts go through your head. You just miss what you love to do.”
Like Francona, Bochy didn’t seek out a job as much as it sought him out. It’s why his wife knew there was trouble brewing once Chris Young walked through that door. A team needs you. It’s hard to turn away from that.
“I’m so glad he’s back, nor did it surprise me when Bochy came back,” Colorado Rockies skipper Bud Black said. “Don’t ask me why. I just know those guys and I knew they weren’t done.”
Black, 67, has been the manager in Colorado since 2017. The Rockies haven’t sniffed the postseason since 2018, losing more than 100 games in back-to-back seasons in 2023 and 2024. He has been given little to work with, yet he keeps coming back for more.
“It’s not just one thing, it’s all of it,” Black said. “It’s the passion for the game. I don’t think it ever leaves you. When you have the desire to stay in it, to stay in the fight, it feels good.”
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Several managers ESPN spoke with echoed Black’s comments. Even those who were a little surprised at Francona’s unretirement understand what drives him — what keeps men who don’t need the money or glory from stepping away for good.
“I texted him right away and said, ‘Are you crazy?'” San Francisco Giants manager Bob Melvin said. “But there are guys that are just baseball guys. It’s in their blood. It’s what they have to do. He’s one of them.
“He’s a legend.”
Melvin is looking forward to exchanging lineup cards before Francona’s first regular-season game back in the dugout later this month as the Reds will host the Giants on Opening Day. Ahead of the matchup featuring two managers in their 60s, Melvin, 63, was asked why teams are turning back to some of the older guard to lead their clubs after a period when younger skippers were en vogue across the sport.
“Because of the success,” Melvin said, citing Dusty Baker and Bochy both winning World Series titles this decade. “Any time there is success, there’s a wave that goes in that direction.”
Francona is hoping to get caught up in that wave. He has a young, ultratalented team that seemingly underachieved last season when it won just 77 games and finished in fourth place in the NL Central.
Infielder Jeimer Candelario is among the players at Reds camp who think their new manager will provide just what the team needs to change that in the season ahead.
“Leadership,” Candelario said. “I think he’s a Hall of Famer. He’s done this for a long time. When he was named manager, he came to the Dominican Republic to see the guys. That was different. The way I see him is with a lot of respect because we know he’s a leader.”
After replacing retirement vacations with introductory trips to meet his new players, Francona admits he wasn’t sure how he would have filled his free time if he hadn’t come back. There’s only so much golf and traveling a person can do. Besides, managing is about the only thing he knows.
“Other than taking a real estate course for two weeks, this is all I’ve ever f—ing done,” Francona said. “I’m comfortable here.”
