Sad Day for The Glass

What’s up guys – A Friend of Mr. Glass’ here, not filling in for SipMojo Rising today just giving you a little something to read about before the afternoon post. I was reading the New York Daily News yesterday morning when I came across Mike Lupica’s excellent piece about Theo Epstein leaving the Red Sox (you can check it out here: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/story/361852p-308215c.html). It made me think, it made me mad, I had to vent. Hope you enjoy.

You know, truth is I haven’t really been following the whole Theo thing all that closely. From the few details that have been made available about those fateful final days, it seems there was some sort of power struggle behind the scenes between Theo and his mentor, Larry Lucchino.

It also seems that something in the Boston Globe convinced Theo Epstein to walk away from the job of running the team he rooted for all his life. It also seems like he wasn’t satisfied with the money the Red Sox were prepared to give him.

You know what I think about all that? I think that’s bullshit.

I don’t mean bullshit in the sense that I think those theories are untrue. I mean bullshit as in it’s bullshit that anything in the world could have been powerful enough for Theo Epstein to walk away from the team he’d loved his whole life, walk away from his so-called dream job.

Because at the end of the day, there’s nothing “so-called” about the dream life he was living. Anyone who reads this blog is either a friend of Sippy Momo’s and/or a huge sports fan. I don’t think it’s the least bit presumptuous of me to say that half to all of the people reading this blog would list running the team they grew up cheering for as the best possible job they could imagine.

Part of that (and not an unimportant part either, incidentally) is that a lot of people reading this are recent college grads working jobs as paralegals or corporate grunts that they don’t really like. And yes, life is going to get better for a lot of them (it’s OK to keep your fingers crossed). But part of what keeps a lot of them going is the idea that not only is the dues-paying of today worth it, but also that it leads to something, somewhere, someday that you’ll really enjoy.

I don’t want to turn the guy into a hero or anything like that, but the truth is that Theo Epstein was an inspiration because he was doing just that. Even if you didn’t like baseball, you could look at his story and feel better about yourself, because if he could do it, why couldn’t you?

In a way, Theo always seemed to me like the kid let loose in the candy store, living the dream shared by so many of his peers. You envy him as much as you admire him, but somewhere between envy and admiration is a heartfelt belief that it could just as easily be you someday. That someday you might actually have a chance of realizing the purest, most orgiastic hopes and dreams of your childhood.

The dream that germinates the first few times you throw the ball around with your dad. The dream that grows the first few times you head out to the ballpark and hope to catch a foul ball before falling asleep on the subway ride home. The dream that cements in the car rides home from soccer games or gym classes when all you have to do is argue about who's better, the Mets or the Yankees?

For a guy like me, for a guy like Sippy Momo, and for a lot of guys like you out there, I’m sure that running the baseball team or basketball team or football team or whatever the hell team it was that you grew up rooting for would make you appreciate that you struck gold, won the lottery, and drew a royal flush every day you made your morning commute.

Somehow though, none of that was enough for Theo. Someway somehow, there was a force out there powerful enough to make it actually seem like it was the right decision to step away from the helm of the team you grew up cheering for, the team you watched with your friends, that you made your mother and sister listen to on the radio during long car rides as a family, that built you up to the highest points before breaking you down to the lowest depths, that you loved for doing it all.

I don’t want to believe it was a money thing. That was the whole idea behind Theo. He was the one guy in sports like all the rest of us. He wasn’t in it for the money; he was in it because he was living the dream. Doing what he loved. Actually running the team he rooted for. Imagine all the conversations you’ve had – man, if the Mets can get Billy Wagner that’s gonna put them over the top… – and actually being able to act on them. I don’t want to think you can put a price on that.

So what else is there? Well, I guess I want to believe there was some sort of Faustian clause in Theo’s contract whereby he could only live the dream for a certain defined period of time before the clock wound down, horribly but inevitably. But I know that's not true. I want to believe something to keep from feeling like hopes and dreams can be bought and sold so easily.

So instead I’ll believe Mike Lupica. “Nobody made Epstein do this,” Lupica wrote. “Nobody ran him off. He is 31 and decided to do it on his own, and in the process, as earnest and sincere as he looked and sounded yesterday, he walked away from the best job he is ever going to have.”

The best job he’s ever going to have. That sounds about right. All of which makes me think, there's a reason Red Sox owner John Henry said, "I imagined Theo was going to be general manager for the rest of my life." Why would Henry say such a thing?

First off, ask yourself if you ever thought any differently. Did you ever think that if the relationship ended that Theo would be the one who walked away? Or did that just seem completey unimaginable to you?

I think Johny Henry said that because he assumed about Theo what he (and I) assumes about all fans - that you can't put a price on the loyalty they feel toward the teams they root for. That letting them into the candy store would be the fulfillment of everything they ever wanted.

And for a lot of people it would be. In this case, the trick of fate is that the one guy who got to live the dream happened to be the one who could walk away from it. The angry part of me wants to say that it's just bullshit, but the more pragmatic side can call it what it is: a damn shame.

- A.F.O.M.G.