There's no place like this home

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Red Sox manager Terry Francona thinks of it as "Animal House." Sox clubhouse chief Tommy McLaughlin calls it "Phi Sign-a Playa."

It is the sprawling, eight-bedroom Cape Coral house where Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein and his minions have been living while they hatch a plan to win the 2004 World Series. It's where Moneyball meets Delta House, and it'll be empty in the next few days when the Sox break camp and fly north to start this season of great expectation.

By any definition, it's "The Real World Fort Myers." No one in baseball can remember anything like it -- a 30-year-old bachelor/general manager sharing spring training living space with six assistants, the best and the brightest of Gammons Youth. All of them went to college. Most of them are in their late 20s. Only two are married.

"It's actually pretty boring," says Epstein, the rush chairman of Phi Sign-a Playa. "We barely see each other. We go to work, come home, and go to sleep. The neighbors told us that we're the most boring tenants ever."

Nice try, Theo, but that's not the way your manager tells it. Theo's Men may worship at the altar of OPS (On-Base Plus Slugging), but in between statistical assessments there has been time for pool, poker, and beer.

"It's actually pretty awesome," says Francona, a fossil of 44. "It's pretty cool. They're just a bunch of good guys. They've got a lot of energy, they've got a lot to offer. Everything's going at once. They're yelling at each other. Fighting. It's fun to be around. I enjoyed it."

Francona is much too old for membership in the Stat Pack Frat, but he has made several visits during the six weeks of spring training, sometimes coming with coaches Dale Sveum and Brad Mills. Francona even brought his 18-year-old son, Nick, a lefthanded pitcher who plans to play at the University of Pennsylvania next year.

"I put the blinders on him," says the manager. "The house is huge. There's two parts of it and it's well-stocked with potato chips and beer. There's a pool table in the middle. When you lose at cards, you go play pool and wait your turn, except I didn't lose. I'm not as young as them, though. When cards is over, I'm tired."

The house was discovered by Red Sox director of player development Ben Cherington last fall. Epstein and Cherington have been tenants throughout the spring, along with Jed Hoyer (assistant to the general manager), Galen Carr (advance scouting director), Peter Woodfork (director of baseball operations/assistant director of player development), Craig Shipley (special assistant to the GM/player development and international scouting), and Brian O'Halloran (coordinator of the major league administration). The eighth bedroom was alternately occupied by visitors Amiel Sawdaye (scouting assistant) and Jonathan Gilula (special assistant to the president/CEO).

There is no phone, but the washing machine and two dryers are in constant motion. Nobody cooks. There's bottled water and beer in the fridge (Michelob Light and Mexican brews), ice cream in the freezer, granola bars, and assorted condiments. There's one giant TV screen, and two regular-sized TVs, plus a swimming pool (with in-pool basketball) and the pool table. Located on a canal, the house has a Jacuzzi and a waterfall, but the Sox baby brass rejected the Jet Ski option.

Epstein says the house has saved the Red Sox more than $30,000 in spring hotel bills -- enough to pay for a couple of Manny at-bats.

"It gets kind of boring sitting in a hotel room by yourself every night," reasons the GM. "A couple of us have had our girlfriends come over. A couple of wives. There's been a lot of visitors. Guys from the front office, on the business side, will come through instead of having to shell out for a hotel. They crash with us in the eighth room."

Epstein had experience with group housing in his senior year at Yale when he lived with nine roommates in a New Haven house that had three apartments. There have been no toga parties in Cape Coral, but the guys are not above an occasional practical joke.

"We were up late one night," says Theo. "Jed Hoyer was sleeping at 2 in the morning so we opened his door, yelled `fire' and got him with the fire extinguisher. That was pretty good."

Hard to imagine Dan Duquette hosing down Mike Port in his pajamas at 2 a.m. And let's not even think about Lou Gorman pulling any late-night pranks.

Times certainly have changed in the Sox front office. Long gone are the days of Pinky Higgins and Dick O'Connell downing brown liquor in a smoky hotel bar. Now it's a wrinkle-free, smoke-free house where laptops never sleep. Nobody gets fired if the Sox don't win it all. The worst that can happen is double-secret probation.

Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. His e-mail address is dshaughnessy@globe.com.