"At some point, I'm going to slow down, but we'll just take it year by year, which is what we've been doing the last few years," he said. "Scale back appeals to me. Dropping off the face of the earth doesn't."(ABC30)

Lawrence Lucchino (born September 6, 1945 in Pittsburgh, PA, died April 2, 2024) was an American lawyer, best known as an executive in Major League Baseball (MLB). Larry became part owner, president and CEO of the Boston Red Sox in 2002 and was part of the ownership group that includes John Henry and Tom Werner. Previously, Larry had served as President/CEO of the Baltimore Orioles (1988-1993) and the San Diego Padres (1995-2001) where he was instrumental in the planning and building of Oriole Park at Camden Yards and PETCO Park, respectively.

Larry attended Princeton University where he played college basketball. He was a member of the Princeton Tigers men's basketball team for the 1964–65, 1965–66, and 1966–67 seasons. The 1964–65 Tigers, captained by Bill Bradley, advanced to the Final Four of the 1965 NCAA University Division Basketball Tournament. He graduated from Princeton in 1967 and then received a J.D. degree from Yale Law School, where he was a classmate of Hillary Clinton.

Lucchino's tenure at the helm of the Red Sox was one of the most successful periods in franchise history, as the Sox won three World Series titles, in 2004, 2007 and 2013, breaking the infamous "Curse of the Bambino" in the process.

Lucchino gave a lot of leeway to his young General Managers, Theo Epstein, who had worked for him with the Padres, and Ben Cherington, while imposing a sabermetrics-based vision for the organization. Indeed, one of his first moves when he came on board was to hire Bill James, the leader in the field, as a consultant.

He largely served as the public face of the team ownership, with Henry and Werner being more discreet, and was known for some colorful quotes, particularly when on separate occasions he chastised the rival New York Yankees for their "crazy expenditures" and then dubbed them the "Evil Empire".

Another of his priorities was to grow the Red Sox's revenue base, something that had been neglected by the previous ownership group which was mainly focused on containing costs; for example, the number of corporate sponsorships grew form 30 to 95 during his first five years with the team.

Lucchino announced in August of 2015 that he would be stepping down by the end of the year, citing his getting on in years as the reason. Sam Kennedy was to succeed him as team president. In 2016, he took over as president of the Jimmy Fund dedicated to research and care for pediatric cancer patients, the official charity of the Red Sox.

(excerpted from Baseball Almanac, BR Bullpen & Wikipedia)