It's as if the Era of Epstein ended before it even began. When the Red Sox's boy wonder of a general manager resigned on Monday, it just didn't seem to make sense. He's a hometown kid, sharp as a tack, just one year removed from delivering Boston its first World Series title in 86 years, with all the tools in place to continue the team's longest stretch of consistent winning in recent memory. On the surface it's everything anyone in the business of baseball could want.
And yet Theo chose to walk away. We probably won't know the whole truth until he sells the rights to his life story to some publishing firm for an ungodly sum of money, but from the sound of it, Epstein was just tired of the circus that running the Red Sox had been. Sure, he had godlike status in New England and probably will for the next 50 years, but he wanted to run the club on his own terms. With the three-headed monster of John Henry, Tom Werner and Larry Lucchino exerting their influence on the team, that would have been impossible.
The club could very easily shrug Theo's departure off and find someone else, and with good reason. The Red Sox will always be in a position of power in the Major League hierarchy and will thus always be in a position to contend. They have the money to go out and get the best players. They have a unique home-field advantage that makes it tough for opponents to beat them at Fenway. They have an ever-growing fan base that stretches from Portland, Maine to Santa Monica, Calif. Yet despite all this, the Red Sox have lost possibly their most important component.
After enduring decades of Tom Yawkey's hunting buddies ineptly running the team, followed by a slew of pathetic general managers, most notably Dan Duquette, the Red Sox were finally in good hands with Epstein. He took the same formula that Billy Beane had used to resuscitate the Oakland A's - one grounded in statistical analysis, a healthy farm system and low-risk, short-term contracts - and over the course of just three seasons turned the Red Sox into one of the most efficiently run organizations in baseball. He found gems in David Ortiz, Kevin Millar and Bill Mueller, and it seemed like he made five good moves for every bad one.
Epstein's ability to think outside the box set him apart from other general mangers and endeared him to all of Red Sox Nation. Recall that the Twins released Ortiz thinking that he would never develop into a power hitter. Remember that it took incredible testicular fortitude to trade Nomar, the face of the Red Sox for eight seasons, last July. The Boy Wonder rivaled Beane as the shrewdest general manager in baseball, and decades of Red Sox front office ineptitude were swept away under his watch. No longer would other teams get away with pulling the wool over the Red Sox management's eyes. If anything, the roles were reversed.
At least that was the confidence Red Sox Nation had until Monday. There are probably dozens of deserving candidates for the recently vacated position, but there's only one Theo Epstein. The instinct for shrewd roster moves that Epstein demonstrated in his three years only comes along once in a while. During the past three seasons, Red Sox fans always had the comfort in the back of their minds that any issues the team had would sort themselves out because we had Theo in our corner. The man knew when and how to pull the trigger, and now he's gone.
Epstein says he wants to reconnect with his family and join in some of his brother Paul's social service work, but you just know that he'll be back in baseball before long. He loves the game too much and is too good at what he does to stay away for more than a couple years. He'll catch on with another team and give them and their fans the same peace of mind the citizens of Red Sox Nation had enjoyed since 2003. Unfortunately, he'll be trying to pull the wool over the eyes of whoever has the dubious distinction of being his replacement in Beantown, just as he'll try to do to everyone else. And Red Sox Nation was just getting comfortable.
At the end of the fall semester, Sports Editor Chris Mahr '07 will leave responsibility for running the section to one of his hunting buddies.
