Les Otten
The former chief executive of American Skiing Co. is having a ball as part owner of the Boston Red Sox.
When the Boston Red Sox season ended shortly after midnight on Oct. 17, Les Otten watched from a few feet away.
From his seat behind home plate, the Sox co-owner looked on as Yankee Aaron Boone blasted a home run over the New York stadium’s left field, yet again dashing the hopes of Red Sox players and fans.
“Right then, the intensity of the last three years of baseball, of constant baseball, came crashing down,” Otten said.
It was a deep wound. “It was one of the greatest emotional lows that I have had that didn’t have anything to do with life or death,” said the former ski resort mogul. “It was a gigantic low because it was up so high.”
He’s bouncing back, though.
Otten is already working on several projects, all aimed at making the team and its ballpark more inviting. Most are hush-hush ideas, concepts that are waiting on details and the approval of the other owners and administrators who run the team.
“I’ve got a couple of things that are really cool that I’m going to bring to the organization,” Otten said.
Meanwhile, he is enjoying his access to the national pastime. It’s good to be an owner, even when the losses come.
“It’s different than people imagine,” Otten said in his office, a Spartan-looking corner room above a bank in Bethel. “It’s not an everyday job.”
Otten became a Red Sox owner in early 2001, after the Yawkey Foundation put the club up for sale.
The former CEO of American Skiing Co., which runs the Sugarloaf and Sunday River resorts, Otten helped put together the group of investors who would buy the team for more than $600 million.
Even before the sale, he helped nurture ideas that would later prove popular, such as the addition of seats atop Fenway Park’s left field wall, known as the Green Monster. There were other changes, too: from the introduction of new vendors to the park to the game-day closing of Yawkey Way, the street outside the park’s main entrances.
The ideas were part of what drew investors and helped secure the approval of Major League Baseball in the sale, which was finalized in February 2001.
Ironically, the buyers were led by former Florida Marlins’ owner John Henry. They also included TV producer Tom Werner and former Sen. George Mitchell.
Idea man
“Once the deal is done, everybody’s role kind of changes,” Otten said. He went from business plan designer to idea man.
It’s a tough job to describe.
“It really depends,” he said. “As an owner, I can spend as much or as little time as I want with the team. I can spend as much time as I want generating ideas that I can give to management.”
The administration, including CEO Larry Lucchino and General Manager Theo Epstein, may or may not accept the ideas.
Meanwhile, he can enjoy the best part of being a baseball owner. It allows him to participate as a fan – with privileges.
“If you love baseball as wicked bad as I do, it gives you access,” he said. “It doesn’t give you power; it gives you access.”
He can travel with the team, fly on their plane and stay in their hotels. He’s become friends with many of the players: Todd Walker, Kevin Millar, Derek Lowe and others.
Before games, he’d play catch with third base coach Mike Cubbage, a personal ritual in a game of rituals.
But he doesn’t talk to batters about their swings, to pitchers about the way they throw or to the manager about strategy.
“It’s like, you didn’t paint the Picasso, but you bought it and you get to look at it,” Otten said. “We can have the Picasso in our living room, where the fan needs to go to the museum to look at it.”
The incredible 40 days
And as an owner, he became part of this year’s pennant race.
The season was extraordinary, he said. In 2002, his group’s first year as the owners, some people underachieved. Players who were counted on to perform, didn’t. They won 93 games (of 162) and failed to make the playoffs.
This year, Boston never left the hunt, which grew especially intense at the start of September.
“I ate, lived and slept the last 40 days of the season every step of the way,” Otten said.”I went everywhere, because you can.”
He was there at the park when the team clinched its place in the playoffs. Fenway erupted.
“The champagne was flowing freely,” he said. “People walking around with boxes of cigars.”
He took champagne to the announcers in the studio and went onto the field with the players, the other owners and the team’s staff.
“Everybody’s hugging everybody,” he said. “You’re allowed to be part of the victory and be close to it.
“It was just, um. I don’t know. Amazing. There’s no way to describe it. I can’t.”
The Red Sox won their first series of the post-season, a dramatic come-from-behind victory against the Oakland Athletics.
Otten had tried to install drive-in-sized screens in Fenway Park for fans to come and watch the away games together. It can be done, but there wasn’t enough time this year, he said.
Then, as fans well know, after Oakland, the Red Sox faced their arch enemies: the Yankees. The games were close, but New York won.
“I was crushed because I figured I don’t know how many shots we’ll have to win,” Otten said.
Using the stats
He knows intimately the Red Sox history of near misses, the lack of a World Series victory since 1918.
“Give me another four or five shots, and we’ll see how I feel,” he said.
Some people – fans and sportswriters – blamed manager Grady Little for the loss, particularly his decision to leave ace pitcher Pedro Martinez in the final game after the Yankees began hitting his pitches.
On Oct. 27, the team let Little go.
“Grady managed that night the way he did all year, based on his gut, his knowledge of baseball,” said Otten, who agreed with the decision to release him.
“The general manager (Theo Epstein) is building a farm system and a statistical system and a management style, which you want the field manager to agree on wholeheartedly,” Otten said.
“We can provide useful information to our coaches, managers and scouts, better information than anybody in baseball,” Otten said. Little wasn’t using it.
“The bottom line: It’s great to be good guys and have a lot of love. You have to have that. But you have to have one more thing,” Otten said. “You need a World Series title in Boston.”
It could happen next season, he said.
“The majority of our core (players) are going to be back next year. There are not going to be large or wholesale changes,” he said. “Right now, we need to sit back and let our people do their jobs.”
Until then, Otten said he’ll do his job, and he’s literally counting the days until fantasy baseball camp opens next January. Like lots of ordinary baseball fans, he’ll dress in a uniform and play ball with past stars.
And he’ll be there when the Red Sox take the field.
“It’s going to suck you in again: mind, body and soul,” he said.
Opening day is April 5.
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