…Except that I guess it really wasn’t.
I think everyone kinda felt the rumblings (at least I did) that it was certainly possible that once Dave Dombrowski was let go by the Tigers, that he would find a home with the Sox. Especially since he and John Henry have a looooong history–and we all know how much John Henry loves his history.
So he is in, and Ben is out, despite management saying Ben was going nowhere, and even said that Ben didn’t have to leave. But Ben knew the writing on the wall–Dombrowski is a hands-on guy–hell he even fired GM Randy Smith and Manager Phil Gardner when the Tigers lost their first 6 games of the 2002 campaign and replaced Smith as GM.