Staying on a Theme

IvyChat has come across a recording of Theo Epstein's exit interview in Boston:

Theo Epstein: Last night we said a great many things. You said you were going to do the thinking for both of us. Well, I've done a lot of it since then, and it all adds up to one thing: I’m getting on that plane for Chicago.

Larry Lucchino: But, Theo, no, I... I...

Theo: Now, you've got to listen to me! You have any idea what you'd have to look forward to if I stayed here? Nine chances out of ten, we'd wind up in third place again. Isn't that true, Ben?

Ben Cherrington: I'm afraid Andrew Friedman and Brian Cashner would insist.

Larry: You're saying this only to make me let you go.

Theo: I'm saying it because it's true. Inside of us, we both know you‘ll be better off with Ben. He's part of your work, the thing that keeps the Red Sox going. If that plane leaves the ground and I'm still working here, you'll regret it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.

Larry: But what about us?

Theo: We'll always have 2004 and 2007. What we had left, we lost when Papelbon blew the season in Baltimore.

Larry: When I said I would never fire you...

Theo: And you never will. But I've got a job to do, too. Where I'm going, you can't follow. What I've got to do, you can't be any part of. Crane Kenney won't allow it. Larry, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people, you, me and John Henry, don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that.

[Larry lowers his head and begins to cry]

Theo: Now, now... Here's looking at your new kid.