Today the Chicago Cubs and Boston Red Sox both held press conferences to announce their new hires. Â Cubs owner Tom Ricketts sat next to Epstein gloating while his new President of Baseball Operations talked of how much work he has to do and how long it will take to do it. Â A few hours later, Ben Cherington, newly appointed Vice President and General Manager for the Red Sox, sat next to a smiling President/CEO Larry Lucchino and talked of scouting internationally and then dropped the bomb that starting pitcher John Lackey was opting for Tommy John surgery and wouldn’t be pitching in 2012.
So it’s fair to say that it was an eventful day in baseball even without a World Series game to be played.
If the Epstein press conference happened in Boston, the first question asked would have been “Were you really in a Starbucks as reported a couple of weeks ago?† Instead the first question was about the future of current Cubs manager Mike Quade. Well played, Chicago press.  Meanwhile in Boston, Cherington spent most of his time talking about how he knows things were terrible and it’s his plan to make them better. Then he dropped the bomb about John Lackey because, really, what’s the point of a mid-afternoon press conference if you can’t surprise the press corps?
Both Epstein and Cherington said everything their respective fan bases wanted to hear and it shouldn’t go unnoticed that they both sounded strikingly similar. Â Red Sox fans already missing Epstein should be happy that Cherington and Epstein are apples off of the same tree.
Probably the thing most fans were happiest to hear today from Cherington was that the search for a new manager is already underway:
“We’ve done a lot of due diligence the last couple of weeks … we’ve narrowed a list down to a probable first group of interviews,” Cherington said. “I’m not prepared to say who they are because we haven’t asked permission yet. … We expect to start the interview process soon.”
The last month and a half have been trying for Red Sox fans and today is hopefully the beginning of the return of better times for the fans and, especially, the team.
(Originally published on Examiner.com)