As you
know, we have spoken frequently during the last 10 weeks. We have engaged in
healthy, spirited debates about what it will take over the long-term for the
Red Sox to remain a great organization and, in fact, become a more effective
organization in philosophy, approaches and ideals. Ironically, Theo’s departure
has brought us closer together in many respects, and, thanks to these
conversations, we now enjoy the bonds of a shared vision for the organization’s
future that did not exist on October 31. With this vision in place, Theo will
return to the Red Sox in a full-time baseball operations capacity, details of
which will be announced next week.
Theo’s
back! Theo’s
back! Theo’s
back!
Yawn.
This is news? This is what exactly
what everyone from Caribou to New Canaan has known was going to happen since
about the first week in November.
The only thing we don’t know is, uh,
what his job is gonna be.
We’ll have to wait a few more days
to find that out. In the mean time, how will we sleep?
It’s been said before and I’ll say
it again: this whole stupid drama has been handled extremly poorly by everyone
involved. For two and a half months it’s been all sly hints and coy non-denial
denials. Just a silly charade. When they were announced as co-GMs, you could
tell by the looks
on Hoyer and Cherington’s faces that they knew damn well they were just the
seat warmers. And now, after this long and drawn out soap opera, they’re
prepared to take their rightful place in the back seat.
Because the dramatic Theo/Larry
power struggle has finally been resolved. Somehow. Or not.
Meanwhile, what has really changed? Not much,
from the looks of it. Everything seems the same, right down to Shaughnessy’s
compulsive need to inject himself into the story. (“I told [John Henry] the same
thing I had told him in December. I thought it looked as if he could not make a
decision. I thought he should either fire Lucchino or tell Epstein to get
lost.”)
As Tony Mazz
puts it: “Some people travel around the world in 80 days. It took the Red Sox
that long to run in a circle.”
The only surprising revelation so
far is that, just like the old days, Theo is gonna be reporting to mean ol’ Mr.
Lucchino -- which most sensible people figured would be the one thing to change
in all this.
And so we watch. Like sands through
the hourglass, the days of our lives pass as we await the next press conference.
As the world turns, the bold
and the beautiful
play out their human drama.
Just
get to work.