Mayhem

In case you haven't heard, Theo Epstein is no longer with the Boston Red Sox. That is a Dave's World exclusive, right there. I think.

Looks on this end like the Red Sox' Camelot period is over. The era that Sox fans spent their entire lives dreaming about -- where they win the World Series and surpass the Yankees in the process -- has come and gone.

And I'm not sure it is coming back anytime soon. The guy who plucked David Ortiz and Bill Mueller and Kevin Millar off the scrap heap; the guy who convinced Curt Schilling to pick the Red Sox over the Yankees; the guy who had the cojones to trade Nomar Garciaparra in a deal that addressed all the team's weaknesses; the guy who went out and signed a closer who got the job done after the lack of one led to their downfall in 2003; the guy who on paper should have been here for the next 20-30 years; he's the one who got shoved out the door.

The guy who is sticking around is the one who force feeds us Very Special Presentations For Wally The Green Monster and Red Sox nation membership cards and tries to sell us grass from the Fenway field.

Oh, and the guy who is sticking around is also the one that constantly pipes up and flings mud at everyone who leaves town -- from Pedro to Nomar and now Theo.

Can you imagine the Patriots acting that way? Can you imagine Jonathan Kraft running to a columnist last year and publicly dumping all over Scott Pioli right at the time they were about to announce a new deal? Of course not. Did people in the organization go out of their way to badmouth Ty Law when Law was running his mouth and calling his coach a liar? No. They would never consider behaving in that manner, and that is why they are constantly praised for being one of the classiest franchises in all of professional sports.

The Sox, on the other hand, now have no GM, assistant GM, have to either re-sign Johnny Damon or find another center fielder; likely need new first, second and third basemen; need to revamp the entire bullpen; and will likely need at least a couple new starting pitchers. And that doesn't even count the annual attempt to run Manny Ramirez out of town (I'll believe he actually requested a trade when I see either him or his agent confirm it).

What top-flight free agent or general manager prospect would want to hook on with the Red Sox after everything that just transpired? Especially if you know that someone looking over your shoulder in the office is going to eventually publicly trash you?

Anyway, Epstein can pretty much punch his own ticket from here. He did what no Red Sox general manager had done for 86 years. He has, by far, the strongest general managerial resume in the history of the Boston Red Sox. The 2003 team would have gone to the World Series if Grady Little hadn't made a catastrophic error; the 2004 team won it all; the 2005 team won 95 games and were eliminated by a World Series-winning team that went 11-1 in the postseason. The only more successful run in franchise history was when the team won it all in 1915, 1916, and 1918. Somewhere Theo will get both the money and the power he's looking for, no doubt.

As for the whole media three-ring circus, which every Boston sports related subject inevitably devolves into in a way that doesn't happen in most other cities, all that needs to be said is that the struggling Boston Herald won this battle in Super Bowl XX-type fashion. That about sums it up.

*Just a little private message for those of you who email or IM me to tell me that you don't like either the Sheriff Sully or Scott's Shots sites: Here are a couple ideas -- 1. Email them directly if you feel so strongly, or 2. If you dislike them that much, stop going on their site every day. Seems a reasonable solution.

*Alright, enough of that. Football Thursday is back on tap tomorrow. Time to look forward to Peyton getting his comeuppance yet again.