Theo Walks Away

Theo Epstein was one of the "boy wonders" who was hired by the Boston Red Sox as General Manager three years ago at the tender age of 28. He hired Bill James (a hero to all of us who grew up reading his revolutionary statistical analysis and trenchant writing – he was the ultimate outsider who will someday be in the Hall of Fame), went on recruiting trips for players like a college football coach (famously convincing Curt Schilling to sign with the Sox after breaking bread with him over Thanksgiving), and in 2004 brought the rabid fan base of the Red Sox their first World Series crown in 86 years. He had his dream job and made the dreams of a legion of baseball fans who lived and died with the Sox come true for the first time. Theo Epstein was a God in Boston.

Yesterday, Epstein quit his job. Immediately, the gloating of the angry old guys on the sports pages and the sports talk radio airwaves (with the welcome exception in D.C. of Dan Patrick's national ESPN Radio show) could hardly be contained. Epstein (and people willing to question conventional wisdom in general) threatens the old guard of baseball, and so they relished his departure just as they cheer when Billy Beane's Moneyball Oakland Athletics don't make the Series and when Beane protégé Paul DePodesta is canned in Los Angeles. They gloat because people with a new approach threaten the world that they know. (Peter Gammons, the Hall of Fame baseball writer, is a notable exception.)

So I waited for the column of Bill Simmons, “The Sports Guy,” all day. Slate has called Simmons “the Bard of the Red Sox,” and he deserves the title. He has made fun of some of Epstein's moves and sometimes mocks statheads. Nevertheless, he also knows that Epstein and the movement that he represents have an important place in baseball. He just published a bestselling book looking back at his lifetime passion for the Red Sox that culminates with the title of which Epstein was a principal architect. And when his column appeared today, it did not disappoint. Simmons drives me crazy sometimes -- his attitudes can be juvenile, and he plays dumb sometimes even when he knows better. Today, however, he manages to compare himself to Theo Epstein and make it work:

"When you dream about doing something for a long time, and then it happens, it's never actually as good as you think it would be. There's almost a surreal letdown of sorts after the fact. And it's impossible to explain unless it's happened to you. For instance, ever since I was in college, I dreamed of having my own sports column and covering a Boston team when they won a championship. That's all I wanted. In the spring of 2001, ESPN found me. Nine months later, my beloved Patriots went to the Super Bowl and shocked the Rams in New Orleans. I wrote about it every day, and on the morning after they won, my column ran on the front page of this Web site. Greatest professional moment of my life, right?

Well, something weird happened. After that game, I couldn't stop thinking, "All right, what happens now? What do I do? How can I top my dream moment?"

And the thing is, you can't. The moment happens, it ends, you celebrate and feel good about yourself … and then it's on to the next day, and you have to figure out what the next challenge is, and deep down, you're wondering why you didn't enjoy that watershed moment more than you thought you would. I don't know Theo, I have never met him, and the experience of being the general manager of the first Red Sox championship in 86 years was roughly 100,000,000 times more profound and important than my experience in New Orleans. But the fact remains, after that Super Bowl column, I struggled writing this column for the next seven to eight months; eventually, I ended up moving to California to write for a fledgling late-night television show. That Super Bowl trip changed everything for me."