Red Sox Manager John Farrell Is A Monmouth Beach Native

It's an irony for Red Sox fans celebrating the team's World Series championship: manager John Farrell comes from the heart of Yankees country.

The 51-year-old rookie manager who led the Boston Red Sox to a World Series championship on Wednesday night is also a Monmouth Beach native and where his mother still lives according to the Boston Herald. He is a 1980 graduate of Shore Regional High School in  West Long Branch where he was a pitcher and was also on the basketball team according to his official Red Sox biography.

He is also a member of the Jersey shore sports Hall of Fame, an indication of his connection to the Jersey Shore. Although Farrell attended school in Oklahoma and has bounced around baseball with stops in Cleveland, California and Toronto, he has never forgotten his roots.

A month after his return to Boston Farrell brought his wife and 40 Red Sox employees to Union Beach to help with the cleanup from Superstorm Sandy. Star Ledger columnist Dave D'Alessandro wrote about Farrell finding a baseball card that day turned out to be Farrell's 1993 card from his time with the then-California Angels.  He left a note for the owner that read, "Hoping your collection gets back to you, John Farrell, Boston Red Sox and proud New Jerseyan.” He wondered to D'Alessandro, “I still wonder whose collection it was."

The Red Sox also wrote a $25,000 check to the Community Food Bank of New Jersey according to the Boston Herald.

Fixing The Red Sox

After the Red Sox finished at the bottom of the American League East during the tumultuous 2012 season under Bobby Valentine, the Sox hired Farrell, a former Red Sox pitching coach, away from the Toronto BlueJays to provide a new start for Boston. Because he was still under contract the team had to provide compensation.

“He came in there with a presence,” said pitcher Jon Lester.  “Came in there with his idea of how he wanted to run this team and stood up there in front of us and told us how he wanted it done."

The Sox spent 158 days in first place and re-dedicated themselves to a winning season following the  Boston Marathon shooting. "There's I think a civil responsibility that we have wearing this uniform, particularly here in Boston," Farrell said. "And it became a connection initially, the way our guys reached out to individuals or to hospital visits. And it continued to build throughout the course of the season. I think our fans, they got to a point where they appreciated the way we played the game, how they cared for one another. And in return they gave these guys an incredible amount of energy to thrive on in this ballpark."

ADDITIONAL COVERAGE:

• New Jersey 101.5 -  Red Sox Win 3rd World Series Titles In 10 Years
• Star-Ledger: D'Alessandro: Jersey guy John Farrell turns Red Sox wreckage into a Boston party
• Boston Herald - Red Sox, John Farrell lend a hand to Sandy victims in NJ, NY