Theo Epstein is officially New England's James Bond. Women want him, men want to be him.
The Red Sox General Manager took some time off from piecing together another World Series run to talk to The Tufts Daily and other college newspapers about his rise through the ranks of baseball, being the general manager of a major league team, and the Red Sox' chances this season.
Epstein began by talking about how he got his first break in the industry.
"[Trying to find an internship in sports] wasn't as competitive at the time," Epstein said. "I sent out letters to all teams east of the Mississippi, and the Baltimore Orioles were the only one that responded. I worked extremely hard because I knew it might be my only chance; I was asked back for the next two summers and it all went from there."
Though it's hard to picture the self-assured general manager feeling nervous around a ballpark, he freely admits that things were difficult at the beginning of his career.
"Freshman year [at Yale University], all my friends went down to Cancun for Spring Break but I flew to Baltimore for an interview," Epstein said. "I kept saying to myself, 'don't screw this up.' I also remember coming to work the first day dressed in a full suit and everyone else was in casual clothes."
But Epstein fit right in at the internship, where he at first performed the usual menial tasks such as clipping press articles and addressing questions and complaints.
"The internship was multi-disciplinary," Epstein said. "It gave me a chance to figure out certain things that I was good at."
Epstein worked as a media relations intern for Baltimore for three summers before he followed his boss Larry Lucchino to the San Diego Padres. In San Diego, Epstein attended law school at the University of San Diego while working full time for the Padres Baseball Operations Department.
"In San Diego I was lucky to have tremendous mentors," Epstein said. "[General Manager] Kevin Towers took me under his wing and taught me the art of scouting. I've tried to combine Kevin's knowledge of scouting with objective analysis I've learned from some others."
All of Epstein's hard work paid off when in 2002 he was named the general manager of the Boston Red Sox at the tender age of 28. Despite his youth and somewhat unconventional ascent to the top, Epstein detected no ill will from the general managers of opposing teams.
"When I first got the job I made a point to call the other G.M.s and treat them with a lot of respect," Epstein said. "There was no animosity. If anything the opposite was true - all of them were calling me and trying to make trades and get a piece of what they thought would be fresh meat."
So what advice does Epstein have for the legions of college students that want to follow in his path?
"Get your internship experience while you're in college," Epstein said. "It's hard to be in graduate school and then decide that you want an internship with a sports team. Do anything you can to get an edge; volunteer for the athletic department, write sports for the school paper, go to minor league ballparks and talk to scouts."
Although Epstein is already revered for delivering a World Series Championship to Boston, he hasn't stopped looking for ways to improve the team.
"The biggest challenge of the job is trying to stay ahead of the curve," Epstein said. "The competitive advantages are starting to shrink. A lot of very useful metrics are becoming public knowledge; so I'd say the hardest thing is trying to find the next big breakthrough on our own."
Epstein has gotten great satisfaction from Boston's success, but still tries to maintain a low public profile.
"Managing the celebrity status can be difficult," he said. "When you become a public figure it makes it a lot harder to go through daily life. You have to figure out your priorities. I don't really want a lot of national appeal so I turned down lots of talk show offers. They would have been fun, but I don't really want to get recognized walking down the street all of the time."
Epstein is optimistic about the upcoming season, and he says that the Patriots' team-oriented approach is something the Red Sox will continue to adhere to.
"The team concept is very important to us," Epstein said. "We're lucky to have seen what the Patriots accomplished and we have been trying to acquire guys who are selfless. When you do that pretty soon you see that the whole is great than the sum of the parts and team acquires a group identity."
Epstein had a busy off-season, as he let popular free agents like Pedro Martinez, Derek Lowe, and Orlando Cabrera leave town. But Epstein's signings of shortstop Edgar Renteria and pitchers Matt Clement, David Wells, and Wade Miller leave most pundits declaring the Sox winners in the off-season rat race.
Thanks in a large part to Boston's favorite new 32-year-old son, Boston will get a chance to defend a World Series title for the first time in 87 years, and Red Sox Nation couldn't be happier with the man at the helm.
