Fenway Confidential
Last year the Sox gave Seth Mnookin a key to the park. Now he’s set to give Red Sox Nation a closeup of the franchise.
Soon, Seth Mnookin swears, everything will be revealed. The 34-year-old Newton native is poised to set Boston abuzz as his new book, Feeding the Monster, hits shelves on 7/11. His first book, 2004’s Hard News, was an examination of scandal at the New York Times. And once again, Mnookin’s got people (especially sports reporters and die-hard fans) guessing at what he’s dug up—this time from behind closed doors on Yawkey Way.
Despite the glut of Red Sox reads after the World Series win, Mnookin’s tome about everyone’s favorite team (his, too; he’s an unabashed Sox backer) promises to stand out from the pack. He brokered a deal that granted him unprecedented access and even a workspace at Fenway for all of last season. The arrangement allowed him to gather information that others haven’t—on everything from how the team was acquired and built into a winner, to what really led to the falling out that sent Theo Epstein into brief exodus.
“The only condition was that I had to, in order to get unlimited access to Fenway, if I came across any proprietary financial information, I had to get clearance, which was a good tradeoff,” Mnookin says of his unfettered peek at the club and its machinery.
Because Mnookin isn’t a beat writer—because he was kicking around for a book instead of hacking out game stories for the papers—his behind-the-scenes look wasn’t hampered by the deadlines of daily journalism. Plus, Mnookin says, “because it was a project that would come out in a year, the Sox weren’t worried about saying something and then having it become a big story in the media the next day and having to deal with the repercussions.” Might they have reason to sweat now?
Despite the glut of Red Sox reads after the World Series win, Mnookin’s tome about everyone’s favorite team (his, too; he’s an unabashed Sox backer) promises to stand out from the pack. He brokered a deal that granted him unprecedented access and even a workspace at Fenway for all of last season. The arrangement allowed him to gather information that others haven’t—on everything from how the team was acquired and built into a winner, to what really led to the falling out that sent Theo Epstein into brief exodus.
“The only condition was that I had to, in order to get unlimited access to Fenway, if I came across any proprietary financial information, I had to get clearance, which was a good tradeoff,” Mnookin says of his unfettered peek at the club and its machinery.
Because Mnookin isn’t a beat writer—because he was kicking around for a book instead of hacking out game stories for the papers—his behind-the-scenes look wasn’t hampered by the deadlines of daily journalism. Plus, Mnookin says, “because it was a project that would come out in a year, the Sox weren’t worried about saying something and then having it become a big story in the media the next day and having to deal with the repercussions.” Might they have reason to sweat now?
Originally published in Boston magazine, July 2006
