BOSTON - Ben Cherington was on his way to Greenville, SC - presumably to check out the Greenville Drive, the Sox Class A affiliate - when he got the call and the news from John Farrell.
Like everybody else, Cherington was in shock upon hearing Farrell had been diagnosed with stage 1 lymphoma.
The trip to Greenville was cancelled midway through, and Cherington headed back to Boston last night. The two talked last night and again Friday morning. Not baseball talk from a GM to a manager, but talk from one friend to another.
Of course, Cherington isn't the only person who has reached out to Farrell since the news began trickling out around the baseball community. Farrell has been around the game for a long time, and has made plenty of friends along the way.
"There's a lot of respect for him. I think not just within the Red Sox organization but throughout baseball," Cherington said. "A lot of people are already reaching out. He's someone who has spent his whole life in baseball. He's played, he's coached, he's worked in front offices, and obviously he's managed now. So he probably knows more people in baseball than just about anybody. He's hearing from a lot of people, as you'd expect.
"As I've been kind of talking to him yesterday and this morning, unfortunately in his position there's the public aspect of it you have to acknowledge and deal with and we have to play. I've tried to get an opportunity yesterday and this morning just to talk to him as a human being and a friend and let him know that I'm with him and he'll get through this and we'll get through it together."