And to think Terry Francona once thought watching re-runs of “Gilligan’s Island” was how he was going to spend his days after his big league career.

He, like every major leaguer without a multi-million dollar contract in the bank, was just trying to let the dust settle. The year was 1990 and he had just been released by the Milwaukee Brewers.

Fortunately for Tito, his wife Jacque – a Ginger lookalike – interceded and asked him a blunt question.

“The actual truth of it, it was about May,” Francona recalled Saturday. “I had been home, for what, about six weeks? I was watching Gilligan’s Island. I remember my wife looking at me and she said, ‘Is this what you’re going to do?’ I was perfectly content. So I went and took a real estate course, just trying to get her off my
back, knowing that I didn’t want to do that.”

Francona admitted thinking what a lot of people reading this might be wondering. Really? A real estate course?

“Yeah, that was stupid,” he joked. “Would you buy a house from me? I knew it too.”

Then, on the day after 70-year-old Joe Torre announced this would be it for him managing the Dodgers, he turned more reflective and serious and the rigors of the job, with Torre retiring at the end of the season and Cubs skipper Lou Piniella not even making it there because of the health of his mother.

Has Francona ever asked them how they last so long in the profession?

“I’ve never really asked them that point blank,” Francona said. “I think everybody’s different. To do this job, I think you have to be all in. if you’re not, it doesn’t work. When it comes to a point where maybe you can’t be or you don’t want to be, it’s time to do something else. I can see where the travel, not the pressure, but kind of the pressure you put on yourself to do well. I can see where that can get at you a little bit.”

Francona actually found out about Torre stepping aside for Don Mattingly from another Don who’s been around the baseball track a few times, Don Zimmer.

“Zim’s actually, I think the one who told me,” Francona said. “We were down there… somebody might have mentioned it but I was on the run out there. I don’t know. I actually sent him a note [Friday] night, was I hope that whatever he’s doing, he’s doing on his own terms. Because I think he deserves that. he’s been doing it for a long time and there’s a lot of respect from a lot of people in how he conducts himself. So I hope he’s happy with the decision he made. That’s kind of what I care about.”

Francona, who had his celebrated season managing Michael Jordan with Birmingham in 1994, had to spend several seasons in the minors learning the managerial ropes after Buddy Bell gave him his first job. Mattingly will step right into the big league fire.

“I don’t know. I know I couldn’t have pulled it off but that doesn’t mean he can’t. I don’t know him
that well, I played against him. Obviously some people think highly of him. I would never be able to answer that. if they play well, probably.”

What would it take for Francona to decide this was it?

“Oh, no goals. Nothing like that. if I can’t do the job, whether it’s physically or when you’re not all in,
I would never stick around. I have too much respect for hopefully the game and the people you work for.”

So, could Francona ever see himself managing when he’s 70, like Torre?

“I can’t even see myself being alive at 70,” Francona said. “I’m sure I’ll be I’ll be a heart attack or two into it by then.”

Told that his dad, Tito Francona – with a newly implanted pace-maker within the last week – would order sardines from Jimmy Piersall when he played and that sardines could help his overall health, Francona had an answer in keeping with his single-minded approach to baseball and life in general.

“I think I’d rather have the heart attack,” quipped the 51-year-old manager with two World Series titles on his resume.