John Henry Chimes In

 

6.12.02:  John Henry (JH) on with Bob Neumier (BN) and Sean McAdam (SM) on WEEI:

 

BN: Thanks for calling in. The Sports Museum dinner, I know you want to speak about that? 

 

JH: No. I can't profess to know a lot about it. Gaston, Jacobs, Kraft, and I will be there...

 

BN: Asks about poor record at Fenway:

 

JH: Interesting as to why we haven't played as well at Fenway. One of the things that comes to mind is that Sox traditionally built teams to play in Fenway. Recently team has moved away from prototypical Fenway approach. Playing extremely well in other parks. Some of this is an anomaly but yes, we haven't won nearly as much as we have on road.

 

SM: Where are you in the Fenway Engineering Study?

 

JH: We're moving closer and closer to a time where we can say we can attempt to try to renovate Fenway. There are a whole host of issues involved. We have to try to begin dealing with those. We simply need more space, to get more space, there are a lot of issues involved.

 

Nothing ruled out structurally. All reports not in yet. All research not completed yet. But nothing brought to our attention that says building can't sustain another 30-40 years of use. How you actually renovate the park while keeping charm and beauty and deal with issues of present state? Issues to deal with.

 

SM: Add 10,000 seats, still limited in luxury box, points of sale, ancillary things to drive revenue?

 

JH: When I was looking to build a new stadium in Florida, I spent three years looking at every ballpark that's been built across the country. Each one has it's own issues.. Parking issues, we have those here. There are going to be negatives that you aren't going to be able to deal with. New park not always the answer, we've been seeing that in a number of new ballparks. Hasn't solved everyone's problems. We already have a high degree of income to this ballpark, to privately add 10,000 seats above, costs more to build higher seats, and you get less for the seats.

There are things that hopefully could be done, that would increase revenue, without adding 10,000 seats.

 

BN: How unfair of people who say you don't have money to build a new ballpark?

 

JH: We're spending an awful lot of money on this years team. We're projected to lose about $19M even with income we do have now. What does that loss translate into? Well, you don't want that going on every year. In any renovation there will be issues. .... re: Having the money: not an argument people should worry about right now.

 

SM: Trading deadline. Teams may traditionally take on big contracts. What's your policy? Any directives to Mike Port?

 

JH:  Every team would like to improve, certainly a couple of areas we can improve in. I'll be candid, in our discussions internally and with other clubs, when you talk about looking to acquire player of impact, teams want something in return, even the 25 teams that would really love to reduce salaries, b/c everybody's struggling despite the skepticism (to the contrary). Teams losing real dollars, more than they want to, some more than they can stand.

 

There are impact players available, problem is, as one opposing GM said to us, "you don't have anything in your farm system to give."  One of the reasons we don't have anything attractive is because if you keep trading them for established players (as we had been) you run into that problem. All the teams we talk to ask for a guy like Shea Hillenbrand, or some of our impact player... but we're trying to win a pennant here.

 

SM: How devastating would a strike be here in New England?

 

JH: Not any player or owner that wants to have work stoppage. It would be devastating. I hope that cool heads will prevail. Can't really say anything more. They are meeting. Hoping to avoid confrontation.

 

SM: What about yesterday's compromise to allow revenue share to creep up to 50%?

 

JH: You're more in the know about the proposal, I hadn't heard.

 

SM: Owners said they would implement up to 50%. Looked like beginnings of door opening.

 

JH: There was some progress being made, but last I heard we were far apart. So that's good (if there was progress).

 

SM: Your draft strategy, with David Chadd trying to rebuild a stripped system... any progress with Neighborgall?

 

JH: We went after some players who had signability issues. took a risk in going ahead and  drafting some players who have committed to going to college or deemed by other teams as being difficult to sign. We have our work cut out for us. We used some of our later picks to go after players that perhaps are a risk.

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