He Gone

To no one’s surprise really, Theo Epstein stepped down yesterday as team president of baseball operations for the Cubs. And I have to wonder if Donald Trump didn’t play a role in Epstein moving up his expected departure by a year. Epstein leans to the left politically while several members of the team-owning Ricketts family don’t lean so much as lurch to the right. That could wear on a person after a while. Epstein may have stepped away early for his sanity’s sake. Then, too, it’s in his nature or in the nature of the kind of baseball person he is. Consider that Branch Rickey went from Brooklyn to Pittsburgh to St. Louis, and Andy MacPhail—the Theo Epstein before Theo Epstein—directed teams in Minnesota, Chicago, Baltimore and now Philadelphia. MacPhail preceded Epstein by five years and one regime in Chicago, and Epstein is a rumored possibility to replaced MacPhail in Philadelphia. Talk about full circle. The one job I’m betting Theo Epstein won’t be offered is that of baseball commissioner; he doesn’t hate and/or fear players enough to satisfy the owners. The job of commissioner is to protect the value of baseball franchises for the people who own them, that and nothing more. Epstein isn’t moved by money, but he is smart and independent. To owners, that’s three strikes and Theo’s out (of the running).