Cubs President of Baseball Operations Theo Epstein is the subject of a massive profile by ESPN THE MAGAZINE's Wright Thompson, who writes Epstein's public mission is "simple and well-known: Break another curse." However, Epstein came to the Cubs from the Red Sox prior to the '12 season "for something personal and nearly as important." While with the Red Sox, Epstein "lost control of his obsession, the belief that a collective of people can do one thing better than it's ever been done." At the end of his time there, Epstein "became a shell of the person who fell in love with the game, stress turning into physical symptoms." A title with the Cubs would "combine the best" of his two World Series titles with the Red Sox, as he is "after a feeling, even if he knows better than most how quickly it goes away, and how hard it is to find once it's gone." Epstein's inability to "control the most important thing in his life makes him ... something of a junkie, which leads to life without balance." He "obsesses over details, from the draft board to the recruiting video he made" while recruiting free agent P Jon Lester in '14, complete with a "fake World Series call by the real Cubs announcers, to the time he spent trolling taxidermy websites to find the perfect stuffed bear for the players' cafeteria."
CHANGE OF SCENERY NEEDED: Thompson details Epstein's departure from the Red Sox, noting the end of his time with the club had turned him "into a man who needed to get as far from the team as he could." A "cold war broke out" between the baseball ops people and ownership, with the conflict "cutting through every part of the organization." Epstein felt that some of his bosses were "obsessed with optics and credit, more worried about personally winning a news cycle than helping create the culture that had developed" in Epstein's world. The second time he left the team for good in '11, Epstein and his bosses still "hadn't resolved the conflict between baseball and business." He read reports about how "winning alone wouldn't stop NESN's flagging ratings; the focus group data said his office needed to chase and sign the big-name free agents, whether the team needed them or not." Thompson: "Epstein felt the culture 'jumping the shark,' as he puts it today, but also says the only person to blame for his problems was himself."
MAKING TIME FOR WHAT MATTERS: Epstein has a marriage and two kids who are "forced to coexist with his obsession." Thompson notes Epstein "always requests that his family be off-limits to reporters," which keeps his wife, Marie Whitney, from "appearing in many stories about him, an absence that perhaps prevents outsiders from fully inhabiting the deepest conflicts baseball creates in Theo's life." While in Boston, Epstein "skipped Christmas with Marie's family once to try to sign a free agent." The next year, he "skipped Thanksgiving to do it again." With that in mind, Epstein "intentionally over-staffed the office" when he joined the Cubs, trying to "build a world where he could be great at his job while also fully enjoying the life his job has allowed him to live." He has "learned that being a husband and father is hard, but baseball is easy" (ESPN THE MAGAZINE, 10/3 issue).
JUST ONE OF THE GUYS: Thompson appeared on "SportsCenter" yesterday to promote the Epstein story, saying, "One of the things that struck me most about him, beyond the fact that he's actually a pretty humble guy, is the idea that we're calling him ‘The Mastermind.’ ... He's somewhere in Chicago about to throw up in his mouth. I'm going to get a text message in a minute saying, ‘Are you kidding me?’ The other thing that's interesting is that he has such a strong sense of empathy. His joy will be in seeing how excited Chicago is if and when this happens." Thompson: "He's sort of shockingly normal, and this sounds stupid and totally unscientific, but you'd like this guy. ... The guy is pretty self-aware and takes the work seriously, but doesn't take himself seriously, which is about all you can really ask for someone in a high-pressure situation" ("SportsCenter,” ESPN, 9/20).
