Goodbye to the Architect
by David GasskoNovember 04, 2005
Its just one of those days
When you don’t want to wake up
Everything is ******
Everybody sucks.
- Break Stuff, Limp Bizkit
It was one of those days. A day that reminded us how the Boston media can get our heads spinning. Conflicting information, “reports” with nothing to report, good news, bad news, and ultimately, the saddest, most deflating piece of news since the Nomar trade, or maybe since Babe Ruth was sold to the New York Yankees for $100,000 in 1919.
It’s the Boston media we’re dealing with here: What will follow is a blame game of epic proportions, a he said/she said between Theo Epstein supporters and Larry Lucchino’s lackies. But ultimately, that’s not the story. The Boy Wonder, the architect of the $100 million player development machine, is gone. And so is the share of the World Series Championship that belonged to him.
I don’t like it when we get sentimental. Dave Roberts is forever engrained in my heart and in my memories, but if he had to go, he had to go. I could give up that piece of the championship. I could lose Pedro, Bellhorn, Lowe, whoever. Theo was dispatching these guys to bring us another championship; there was a point to these moves.
There was no reason to let the negotiations with Theo Epstein go this far. He should have been re-signed a long time ago. Let him name a number, and give it to him. That’s smart business.
Unfortunately, we’ve come to learn who was driving all the smart business being done by the Sox, and that man is now one of millions une mployed. That’s what Larry Lucchino and John Henry relegated him to. One of millions.
But he is the one. Sox fans know this. He built the team. The team that went all the way. The team that made grown men weep with joy. The team that energized New England. The team.
It’s not—and this is something that Lucchino and John Henry will never understand—about blame. No one cares if it was Theo’s fault, if he was being bullheaded, arrogant, whatever. He’s Theo F’ing Epstein. He has the right to be.
We don’t know what went on in the negotiations. We only know the result. Theo Epstein is no longer with the Red Sox. Just like that, the dynasty has crumbled, its architect thrown out of the building. It is truly a sad day for the Red Sox.
No, Boston, there is no Theo, not anymore. A bumbling ownership pushed the greatest thing to ever happen to the team out. He left on his own, but no one was fooled: Lucchino & co. just kept pushing and pushing and pushing.
And now the Red Sox are without a general manager. And Boston is without its native son. The sun will rise again, and though few of us will have the desire to get up, at least we can now see clearly now. This is the worst ownership group Boston has ever seen. At least Howard Frazee made some money from selling the Babe.
David Gassko is a former consultant to a major league team. He welcomes comments via e-mail.