BOSTON -- Red Sox general manager Ben Cherington denied Monday that he was ready to hire Dale Sveum last week in Milwaukee, only to have his choice vetoed by ownership.
"This was always going to be a choice that I'm going to make with ownership," said Cherington. "Part of this process was getting candidates that I thought ownership should meet would do that. In Dale's case, I found out the Cubs were speeding up the process, so in order to give ownership a chance to get to know Sveum a little better, we brought him to Milwaukee. But there was no choice. We hadn't made a choice at that time and the Cubs hired him.
"In my conversations with ownership, we didn't get to the point where we felt confident in offering the job. There was more work to be done. We think very highly of him. We really respect Dale a lot. We just weren't there yet to offer him the job."
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Cherington had originally set Thanksgiving as a timetable for the Sox to have their new manager in place. On Monday, he amended and said he hoped the Sox would have a manager in place before the start of the winter meetings in Dallas, which begin Dec. 5.