Last January John Gibbons started getting some unexpected phone calls.
The first came from Astros' owner Jim Crane, who was looking for a replacement after his manager A.J. Hinch had been let go due to Houston's 2017 cheating scandal. Crane wanted to have dinner with the former Blue Jays manager to talk about the job (which ultimately went to Dusty Baker).
Then came the call from Chaim Bloom.
The Red Sox had also parted ways with their manager Alex Cora and faced with the challenge of finding a new skipper before spring training. So on a Sunday night, Gibbons flew to Boston.
"I love them," Gibbons said when appearing on the Bradfo Sho podcast. "I thought it actually went really, really well."
The 58-year-old didn't get the job, with the Red Sox' Chief Baseball Officer choosing to go with bench coach Ron Roenicke. He also isn't the mix this time around, with Bloom once again looking for a Red Sox manager for a second time in less than 10 months.
But thanks to his three-day stay back in Massachusetts -- where both his parents grew up -- an impression was left. (And it wasn't just because they put him up in the Presidential Suite at the Commonwealth Hotel.)
"I was really impressed with the whole group there," Gibbons said. "(Bloom) ran me through the gamut. Down in Houston they didn't have a GM so I sat with the owner. Up there I sat with GM, went to dinner and went through all the departments. I like their group. They're on the ball up there. Chaim is going to do a great job. He came from Tampa and you see what Tampa is doing now. I think he also knows it's not an easy place. There is a grace period, a Honeymoon period. But he has a great baseball mind, he's a good person and he listens. I think he'll do great."
The process of interviewing was nothing new to Gibbons, who managed 1,602 big-league games with the Blue Jays (including 20 in the postseason). Besides the Houston job, he had also been up for positions in Pittsburgh and Seattle in between his two stints in Toronto.
This, he explained, was a bit different.
I"t's kind of interesting, you experience all these different organizations and I'll tell you this: The really good organizations do things a little bit better than the others," Gibbons said. "That's all I'll say. Sometimes it involves money. But there is also a right way and wrong way. That's the reason why teams win.
"(Bloom) is good people. (Assistant general manager) Raquel (Ferreira) was there. It eased my mind anyway. A lot of BS we were throwing around about the game, the philosophies of the game, the Red Sox team and player and all things like that. A little about my family, my history and things like that. It was pretty casual but it was a good way to break the ice. The next day they ran me through the assistants, and then the analytics and the travel. I'll tell you what, they hit you pretty hard. You have to stay on your toes. I found out, I approached it just to be myself. Either they like it or they won't."