White Sox retired Ozzie Guillen’s number, sure, but they could’ve had all-time great Terry Francona — twice

The White Sox made the right managerial hire in November 2003.

Right for them. Right for the Red Sox — and the Cubs — too.

Let’s go back so we can tie all this together.

As that year’s World Series between the Yankees and Marlins was underway, Ozzie Guillen, then the Marlins’ third-base coach, was described by the Sun-Times’ Chris De Luca as “bursting with confidence” before his interview with the White Sox’ then-general manager, Kenny Williams. But Guillen was regarded in the media as a long shot to succeed Jerry Manuel. Two-time World Series winner Cito Gaston seemed a far likelier target, though the tight-fisted Sox would have to pony up to get him. A short list of others — including A’s bench coach Terry Francona, an ex-Phillies skipper who’d managed in the Sox organization, famously having Michael Jordan in Double-A — were widely reported to still be under consideration.

Guillen, 39, impressed Williams and chairman Jerry Reinsdorf with bold talk about igniting a stagnant Sox clubhouse and got the job. Francona, 45, hadn’t “[made] the earth move,” according to a Sun-Times story. A month later, though, the baby-faced GM of the Red Sox — a not-yet-30 Theo Epstein — made the offer that would put Francona on a path to the Hall of Fame.

In 2004, Francona’s first season in Boston, the Red Sox ended the Curse of the Bambino, an 86-year championship drought. One year later, Guillen and the White Sox ended an 88-year drought, sweeping the Red Sox in the divisional round along the way. The Red Sox won the World Series again in 2007, making Francona a superstar and Epstein something akin to a superhero. The Cubs eventually threw themselves at Epstein, who was ready for a new challenge heading into 2012, and the mother of all droughts — 108 years — would end in 2016 in Game 7 against Cleveland, which, of course, by then was being managed by Francona.

See how it all fits? It’s a baseball story that might as well be an anthology film.

“Wow, [the White Sox] picked me in front of Francona? WOWWW. I’m very pleased they picked me. That’s a privilege for me,” Guillen told me Wednesday.

According to Francona, in town with his current team, the Reds, to face the White Sox, he wasn’t formally interviewed by the Sox before the job went to Guillen. But he did get an interview heading into 2012, when he was there for the hiring but the Sox instead opted for managerial greenhorn Robin Ventura.

“I talked to Kenny Williams, it was very quick and I knew I wasn’t getting it,” Francona said. “But I guess I technically interviewed, kind of met him at the airport restaurant and had lunch. That was the extent of it.”

Who knows? Maybe Reinsdorf will engineer a run at Francona, as he did with Tony La Russa, to manage the Sox when this young core is ready to make a real run at the World Series. You know, a “sorry, Will Venable, for the Ricky Renteria treatment” kind of thing. Probably not. But Francona, 67, has only one guaranteed year left on his Reds contract.

Francona’s body of work is extraordinary. He entered Wednesday in 11th place on the all-time wins list, with 2,090. The only non-Hall of Fame managers in front of him, Dusty Baker and Bruce Bochy, each will soon be in Cooperstown. Francona is the active leader with more than twice as many wins as A.J. Hinch or Dave Roberts, the next two on the list. Assuming he’s back for a full 2027 season, Francona will pass Joe McCarthy (2,125) and Bucky Harris (2,158) and have a real chance to overtake Baker (2,183) and Sparky Anderson (2,194), putting him in seventh place. If he and the Reds agree on the team’s option for 2028, Francona could pass Bochy (2,252) as well.

Yep, the Sox — twice — could have had that guy. We haven’t even mentioned that in Francona’s 11 seasons in Cleveland, the last of which was 2023, his teams won four division titles, posted nine winning records and finished below the Sox in the standings a grand total of once.

“He’s one of the best, period,” Guillen said. “He’s a winner. He gets along with his players very well. That’s the most important thing — he is great and he is still the same guy no matter who you are. He knows he is a Hall of Famer and is a very humble man.”

Not that the Sox regret going with Guillen, whose No. 13 was just retired at Rate Field last weekend. Guillen is 97th on the wins list (747), though he is the first Ozzie.

“I thought he was good for the game,” Francona said of Guillen. “He certainly wasn’t boring. And when we first came here, man, they played kind of like his personality. They had some pretty good teams.”

But what if? Francona instead of Guillen way back when would’ve been interesting.

“I [would have stayed with] the Marlins and I know I would have been managing that team,” Guillen said.

And how would that have gone?

Said Guillen: “My career never [would have been] the same.”

How true that is.