"Although I Have No Immediate Plans, I Will Embrace This Change In My Life And Look Forward With Excitement To The Future"

Well said Theodore. Screw 'The Man' keeping you down. Here's to hoping to get a phat contract from the Dodgers or Phillies (ain't baseball grand, the Phillies are slated to be at Fenway June 23-25!).

"Although I Have No Immediate Plans, I Will Embrace This Change In My Life And Look Forward With Excitement To The Future." It sounds like Theo is "embracing his destiny" as a wise man once said.

Finally, it makes all this stuff (bickering) between the Globe and Herald great, and more importantly, newsworthy and accurate! Over the past week especially, the Herald has been non-committal on Theo's new deal, even saying in Monday's paper that "he would reval his answer today". Where as the Globe has some messy, runny, yellow EGG on its face with the "Epstein and the Red Sox have agreed to an extension of that length, keeping the Brookline native in place as the team's GM through the 2008 season, according to multiple major league sources". Better recheck those MULTIPLE league sources hey Gordo.

This agenda spilled over on Saturday when baseball guru Tony Massarotti (he's CLEARLY better than Gordon Edes and should be the Boston heir apparent to Peter Gammons) cited the Globe for having a Smear Campaign against Theo. Mazz goes on to point out the partial ownership between the Sox and Globe, and then bangs home a great point: That is why, as much as ever, we should hope this remains a two-newspaper town.

I couldn't agree more, ESPECIALLY being here in Rhode Island with the crappy Providence Journal. For lack of a better team, the Journal has bad coverage of PC bball, not that they don't cover what they should, they do, but there's no provacitive stories, just reporting. By comparsion, at UMass, there's the Republican and Daily Hampshire Gazette who both compete for UMass stories. There's feature stories, and a "rush" to get the news first over the other one. Conversley, the Television media aspect in Springfield is horrible as no one cares about 22, therefor News40 can do what they please. Of note, here in Providence, there are three tv stations so they actually DO compete for attention which is an interesting dynamic for me to see unfold over the past 14 months. Finally, that's what makes Boston cool, you've got the two newspapers, in addition to the three networks, Fox25, NECN, NESN, FSNE, WB56 and WEEI. THIS is why I need to go work in NYC, to see the next step (is it the highest step?)

Back to the Sox, here's what Dan Shaughnessy said Sunday in his Ironing of dirty laundry column and a response to the "Smear Campaign"...

It was charged last week that Sox management conducted a ''smear campaign" against Epstein. How? Where's the campaign? It was correctly reported that Theo turned down a three-year deal at $1.2 million per year. That's a smear campaign? There have been no quotes from Sox management on the negotiations. Lucchino and Epstein called me together at home Friday night but said they could say nothing about Theo's contract talks because they had not spoken with other outlets. So much for the Globe's ''home-court advantage" (the Globe's parent company, The New York Times Company, owns 17 percent of the Red Sox). So much for the cartel. In fact, Epstein's minions probably have done more talking about Theo's situation than anyone in Sox management. When postseason baseball visited Chicago, at least one nationally known Lucchino-hating Epstein source was trashing the Sox CEO to anyone who'd listen.

At this point, I love being in the position I am in... TOTALLY disconnected from the situation, just sitting back and watching the DraaaaaaaaaaMA. So here's to Theo, your affection for the Red Sox did not begin four year ago when you started working at (Fenway), and it does not end today.