No. 500 further validation for Francona

About two or three times a year, you still feel as if you’re getting called into the principal’s office. In these instances, Terry Francona usually sits behind his desk and tactfully tells you how clueless you are for something you’ve said, written, or done.

And then it’s over, never to be mentioned again.

Now entering the 53d game of the sixth year of the Terry Francona Era, the Red Sox possess a 30-22 record today. More than at any other time in modern Red Sox history, the skipper’s job is safe. Francona has just begun a three-year, $12 million contract extension that runs through 2011 with club options for 2012 and 2013, and last night he became just the third manager in Red Sox history to record 500 wins with the team.

Red Sox manager Terry Francona reached 500 wins with the club Tuesday night. (AP Photo)

By the end of this season, assuming things go the way the Red Sox hope and expect, Francona will overtake Mike Higgins (560) and trail only Joe Cronin (1,071) for career wins by a Red Sox manager. The long line of Red Sox skippers again will be recalibrated, and Francona will take his place alongside the immortal Cronin.

Think about that for a moment. The Red Sox have existed for more than a century. And by the end of this season, it is likely that only one manager will have won more games than the man currently occupying the clubhouse office at Fenway Park.

More than the followers of any team in sports, Red Sox fans should know better than to take this kind of stability for granted. Until Francona completed his fifth campaign in Boston last year, no Red Sox manager since Cronin (1935-47) had lasted as many as five consecutive seasons. During the 60-year gap between those two men, despite the protestations of the many who argued that the Red Sox were constantly undermining themselves, Red Sox ownership and management effectively ran one of the more historic franchises in sports as if it were a banana republic.

From Dick Williams to Darrell Johnson to John McNamara to Jimy Williams, the solution was always the same: out with the old and in with the new. Managers came and managers went. The Sox often had internal issues that went down to the bone, and yet they continued to treat them with band-aids and antiseptic ointment. Why deal with the real problems when you can just fire the skippah?

In this way, the current Sox ownership (headed by John Henry) and management (led by Larry Lucchino and Theo Epstein) deserve credit for treating Francona the way that Sox managers should have been treated long ago. Once the Sox got through the Grady Little years -- in retrospect, what was he but a transitional figure? -- the Sox have stood by their manager. In 2006, when the Sox disintegrated in the final weeks, nobody really blamed the manager. And after the World Series win in 2007, the Sox finally elevated their managerial position to elite status by giving the Red Sox manager the kind of cachet and contract extension that this town and this team should long ago have possessed.

After all, these aren’t the Colorado Rockies we’re talking about here. Or the San Diego Padres. Or the Texas Rangers. During all those years, between Cronin and Francona, the Red Sox did as much harm to themselves as any opponent did.

With regard to Francona, in particular, we all had out doubts about him when the Red Sox hired him in November 2003. Given the manner in which his many predecessors were handled, it was impossible to believe that he was The One. Francona’s only previous managerial experience was with a wretched Philadelphia Phillies outfit that made him virtually impossible to evaluate, and the immediate aftermath of Little’s exiling had brought all of New England to new depths of hopelessness.

Nearly six years later, Francona has won more games than any big league manager but Joe Torre (507). In postseason play, Francona is 4-0 against Tony LaRussa, and 9-1 against Mike Scioscia, two of the more highly regarded managers in baseball. (He is 4-3 against Torre.) The Red Sox have won two world titles and been to the postseason four times in five years during Francona’s tenure. Overall, they are 28-14 in postseason play.

Along the way, lest there be any suggestion that this was all a pleasure cruise, the Red Sox clubhouse has been relatively devoid of managerial scandal and controversy. Players have not backbitten Francona like they did Kevin Kennedy or Williams. Management has not privately questioned him the way they did Little. Francona generally has preserved all relationships by keeping open lines of communication, a testament to how much he values relationships of all kinds.

His players like him. So do his coaches. The same generally is true of his bosses and the media, which suggests that Francona has an ability to communicate effectively with all walks of life, regardless of whether he is expressing his approval or displeasure.

Does this make Francona perfect? Hell no. He would be the first to tell you that. Francona is so cognizant of the impact his actions can have on others -- this is especially true of any manager -- that he can internalize things too much. That can be unhealthy. Depending on his level of stress, he sometimes can be a stickler for trivial details -- the precise wording of questions, for example -- even when he knows and understand the general intent or point. He and his bosses can sometimes get on each other’s nerves -- this is quite normal, of course -- and he doesn’t particularly like criticism.

At the end of the day, all of that only makes him human.

In Boston, as we all know, the skipper of the Red Sox is under constant scrutiny. Starting with your father, there are far more people who think they can manage the Sox than there are those who truly have the slightest clue. Many of them call talk shows or send Francona nasty e-mails. On the bad days, Francona curses out those folks. On the good days, he accepts them as part of the landscape in a market where the Red Sox uniform stirs up passions like no other, helping to explain why the job he holds historically has been characterized by instability and volatility.

Tonight, Francona goes for Red Sox career win No. 501.

Generally speaking, he has led a relatively placid and productive Red Sox existence.

In Boston, after all, you simply cannot last this long -- and win this many games -- without doing something right.