Hey, Theo.
Do it.
Who knows if the Chicago Cubs even have any tangible interest in bringing Theo Epstein aboard as a vice president, but if I'm the current Red Sox general manager, I would take a serious look at moving the family to Illinois.
Imagine going down in baseball history as the man to lead both the Boston Red Sox and the Cubs to World Series titles.
Curses aside, that's Cooperstown material.
ESPN's Buster Olney threw Epstein's name at the wall this week in pontificating which personnel the Cubs might be looking at in filling their GM role after canning Jim Hendry this week, and suddenly Red Sox fans went into a tizzy, adamant that Theo would never dream of leaving his cushy job on Yawkey Way. Except for, you know, that time he left his cushy job on Yawkey Way.
He's well-paid. He's got arguably the best GM role in the game, with an endless stream of revenue that expires only when the phrase "luxury tax" comes up. He's built a farm system on par with the best in baseball. He's a mere mile from his hometown of Brookline. He's a hero in a town that thirsted for a baseball title 86 years, and now is on the threshold of possibly adding a third in seven years.
And yet, Theo Epstein is widely underappreciated.
Part of it is our culture. Aside from the majority of Patriot fans, who react to criticism of their team about as well as Kevin Smith reacts to a salad, Boston is very much a "What have you done for me lately?" town. You don't hear Celtics fans satisfied with 2007, and if the Bruins falter, they'll experience the same soon. The Red Sox know that well enough when they watched their ratings for the 2010 season plummet. But following an offseason that saw an unprecedented re-tool (Best Team Ever, some say), the Nielsens are up, the Sox are in first place, and...John Henry gets the credit for opening his wallet.
Theo gets criticism for his free agent blunders.
Remember when Epstein pontificated in the spring about there simply being something more pure about building a baseball team from within? I took that as a significant sign that he wasn't psyched about signing Carl Crawford to a 45-year, $900 million contract, or whatever the numbers were. Believe what you want, but I'm on the side that Crawford was an ownership decision, and that the tradeoff was that the trio allowed Epstein to go out and grab his binky Adrian Gonzalez in exchange. Theo takes the rap for Crawford, Renteria, Lugo, Drew, Lackey. The minority give him credit for Pedroia, Ellsbury, Bard, Lester, Buchholz, when it is indeed the latter that the GM has to be most proud of, and the reason why he should be so highly regarded in baseball.
Theo preaches patience, which is more important in the game's immediacy and long-haul than anything else. Ownership? What's in your wallet?