In a move slightly reminiscent of a young Lorne Michaels offering the Beatles $3000.00 US to reunite on “Saturday Night Live” (“split it any way you want — give Ringo less, we don’t care.”), the Canadian-American League’s Brockton Rox have offered Theo Epstein a job.
From the Associated Press (link courtesy Baseball Think Factory) :
The team, which plays in the Canadian-American League, is restricted to a total player payroll of $87,500 — far less than the major league minimum of $316,000 per player and far below Boston’s $126.8 million payroll this year.
“It’s assumed that Epstein is looking for a greater challenge,” the team said in a statement, noting that Epstein could sweeten the pot for players with an $18 per diem and put them up with a host family.
The team said Epstein could join Oil Can Boyd for Thanksgiving dinner in the pitcher’s hometown of Meridian, Miss., in an effort to get the deal done. Epstein used a similar tack to bring Curt Schilling to Boston.
One warning for the 31-year-old baseball boy wonder, though: “We don’t actually have an office for Theo,” Rox president Jim Lucas said. “But we built two new cubicles this year and he’d have his own phone and access to the internet.”
Though I keep reading that Epstein wants some time off, if the Rox were to throw in tickets to a Marvin Hagler film festival, they might have themselves a deal.