Within 10 minutes of meeting John Henry for the first time, alarm bells started ringing. We’d exchanged pleasantries and were sitting alone in his suite at Fenway Park, home of the Red Sox baseball team he owns, on a colourless November afternoon in Boston. Settled into our plush leather chairs overlooking home plate, we were enveloped by walls displaying a gallery of rich memories: trophy celebrations for the Sox and the English Premier League football club Liverpool, also owned by Henry’s Fenway Sports Group (FSG); a joyous snap at a World Series parade with his wife Linda and Boston icon David “Big Papi” Ortiz; Henry’s two youngest children grinning along the first-base line, just yards away.
第一次見到約翰•亨利(John Henry)不到10分鐘，警鐘就開始敲響。我們互相寒暄後，坐在他在波士頓的芬威球場(Fenway Park)套房裏，這是他擁有的紅襪隊(Red Sox)的主場，一個色彩單調的11月下午。我們坐在豪華的皮椅上，俯瞰著本壘板，四周的牆上展示著豐富的回憶：紅襪隊和英超聯賽(Premier League)的利物浦(Liverpool)俱樂部的獎盃慶祝活動，這兩支球隊都是亨利的芬威體育集團(FSG)所擁有的；與妻子琳達和波士頓的象徵性人物大衛「大波帕」奧爾蒂斯一起參加世界大賽遊行的快樂合影；亨利的兩個最小的孩子在一壘線上笑得合不攏嘴，就在幾碼之外。