It is something Bill Russell -- as great a winner as American professional sports has ever known -- once famously said about Joe Morgan -- who Russell knew as a kid when they attended high schools by each other in Oakland -- one of the great players baseball has ever known: “Isn’t it funny how good teams seem to follow Joe Morgan around?”

That is a question worth asking right now about Terry Francona, now that he has the Reds knocking on the door of a NL Wild Card bid . Isn’t it funny how good teams seem to follow the guy known as Tito around?

“Here he is again,” Buck Showalter -- both a contemporary of Francona and an admirer -- said on Thursday.

Francona was the manager of the Red Sox when they ended the Curse of the Bambino in Boston in 2004. He did that in style after falling be

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