The Boston Globe’s Bob Ryan takes a dim view of John Henry’s handling of the Theo Epstein/Larry Lucchino mess, regardless of Epstein’s return to the fold.
The new title is ”executive vice president/general manager.” Who cares? A title says nothing.
Power is all that matters. That fellow in Libya has never given himself a promotion. All these years running the country, and it’s still plain ol’ ”Colonel” Khadafy. But everyone over there seems to know who’s in charge, all right.
When Lou Gorman had the power, he was the ”senior vice president” of the Red Sox. The word ”executive” has a nice ring to it. Danny Ainge is ”executive director, basketball operations” of the Celtics. No slash. But a slash may not be such a big deal.
Last year at this time, Theo Epstein had a slash. When he exited Fenway Park in his gorilla suit in October, he was the outgoing ”senior vice president/general manager.” Now other people who will clearly be answering to him have a slash. In fact, the longest title in the organization now belongs to Craig Shipley. He is the ”vice president/international scouting and special assistant to the general manager.” Try that one with your mouth full.
It was heartening to see that they still can’t get their story straight. Try this laugher from ”principal owner” John Henry on the subject of the front office discord that led to Theo’s departure: ”The media has been in much more turmoil over the Red Sox than has been the case internally.” We could consider taking his word for that if he hadn’t already said a few paragraphs earlier, ”This is not the same organization that Theo left. There was enough discord then to give Theo legitimate reasons to move on.”
Supply your own punch line.