IIRC, Harrington was obligated to put the club up for sale as per terms of the trust agreement with JRY Corp. The ballpark proposal was never expected to go anywhere; it was intended to help facilitate a sale by getting the city on board with a new ballpark. Given that it was Boston, it would easily had been 20-40 years before the park would have been built anyway. I recall all the hoops the Bruins had to jump through to get a new Garden built right next to the old one.
I did PR for the last years of the Yawkey Trust ownership through the sale of the team and on the new ballpark project. A few things
1. They absolutely were planning on building a new ballpark.
2. I'm not aware that they were deliberately letting the place crumble to help facilitate a new park, but the notion they put forward--and maybe even believed--that Fenway would become unsafe over time and could not be renovated was obviously not true.
3. Harrington had to sell the team and had a fiduciary responsibility to maximize revenue, but there was no timeline on when he had to sell. Harrington did that job very well--he got a ton of money. There were arguments that the Henry-Werner deal wasn't the highest, but those were mostly illusory. 1. The Prentice offer was never close to financed. 2. The McCourt offer, which was lower anyway, never made any sense. 3. Dolan made his offer public in the first round in specific violation of the bidding rules. Also, Dolan probably couldn't have been approved unless his brother sold the then-Indians, which would have slowed the process and cost money. 4. The O'Donnell bid wasn't as high, if I recall, as the Henry bid, but they spent a ton of time having McDonough, Shaughnessy and others lobby very publically for them to get a sweeter deal because they're "local."
The closest to accurate presentation I've read of what happened was in Mnookin's "Feeding the Monster."
As for the new ownership, they've won titles and mostly spent money, and mostly haven;t done anything contemptible. i have no reason to believe they're good people or that they aren't, but they aren't longtime friends with and continuing apologists for Donald Trump, unlike New England's most beloved owner.
My grievances are as follows, but not outweigh the winning.
1. I understand why they couldn't sign Mookie with the threshold, but stupidity put them in that position. Even now, I am still angry about it, and when the eventually give the deal that should have gone to Mookie to someone not as good--and they will--it will piss me off.
2. Dumping Orsillo was terrible. He was really good. O'Brien has a good voice and cadence but not much else. I wasn't crazy about dumping Trupiano either.
3. Badmouthing peiple on their way out the door. Old ownership did it, Red Auerbach did it, it still sucks. Trying to portray Tito as a pill popper was particularly shitty.
4. Their largely successful effort to internalize a ton of revenue under their banner with street closures and what not annoys me. Kenmore square was pretty dingy, but they, and other developers, tried really hard to cut out some local businesses.
But other than that, teams go up and down--winning a lot, even with regular mistakes is pretty good. I live in DC and while I have never been a fan of the local football team, I can easily understand how losing your team to an owner who is both incompetant and reprehnsible can really ruin the team and even the sport.
