I work for the Chicago Cubs, a team with a following so loyal and adoring and a history so forlorn that we were known nationwide as the Loveable Losers.
If you're trying to avoid one move that you don't think is going to work out, don't then settle for a different move that maybe doesn't check all the boxes. Be true to the philosophy and understand the bigger picture. There's always another day to fight.
We want to try and transform the Red Sox into a team like the Braves or the Yankees, where you can almost count on the postseason every year.
I love being in a city that's playing October baseball, where you can just feel everyone captivated by the ball club, everyone walking around tired from staying up late, prioritizing baseball above all else. It's a great phenomenon.
I don't want to be buried in a Red Sox casket.
Players that tend to respond to adversity the right way and triumph in the end are players with strong character. If you have enough guys like that in the clubhouse, you have an edge on the other team.
Communication is different in the clubhouse than it is in a boardroom. The heartbeat that exists in the clubhouse, you don't find that same type of heartbeat in the front office.
Even over time, with a stable coaching staff and one manager who is fantastic and been in place for a long time, you can't ever defer and stay out of the clubhouse because you don't want to get in the way.
When I was writing or competing in individual sports, it felt unfulfilling and lonely. When I was able to find a group of people I believed in and liked, that all worked in pursuit of a common goal, it felt incredibly rewarding.
There's a cumulative effort within the course of a game, a series, and a season, too, where you see so many pitches and have so many at-bats that you can wear down an opponent. Once you develop that reputation as a club, year after year, players come in, and they tend to fit in with that profile.
The Cubs - with their passionate fans, dedicated ownership, tradition, and World Series drought - represented the ultimate new challenge and the one team I could imagine working for after such a fulfilling Red Sox experience.
I do think we can be honest and upfront that certain organizations haven't gotten the job done. That's the approach we took in Boston. We identified certain things that we hadn't been doing well, that might have gotten in the way of a World Series, and eradicated them.
You don't want to make a living or habit out of trying to solve your problems with high-price pitching free agents because over the long run, there's so much risk involved that you really can hamstring your organization.
If you want to continue to be good and perform at a high level and be deep in all areas, you still have to hit on some undervalued players, too. You can't just go out and sign marquee free agents or trade for players when they're at the peak of their value. That's not a formula for long-term success.
Having a relentless lineup full of professional hitters works on so many levels. It works in terms of pure baseball reasons: if you get on base, you're going to score runs.
It's hypocritical to say when things are going well, 'Interview me. Ask me how great I am. Ask me about family and personal life.' At some point later, when someone wants information and you want to draw the line, how do you do that?
We don't live in isolation. Most people don't like working in isolation - some do, but they typically don't end up playing Major League Baseball.
There are certainly times when baseball is much more than bread and circus, times when baseball resonates deeply and meaningfully with many, many people, and times when a game that is built around overcoming failure can teach us all a few important lessons.
The 'Chicago Sun-Times,' I remember, ran a full-page, front-page photo-shop of me walking on water across Lake Michigan, as if by showing up I was going to miraculously fix the team's fortunes. Imagine their disappointment, then, when I announced a long-term rebuilding plan focused on acquiring young players and winning in five years.
You reach a point where you're trying to survive. You're just trying to put the ball in play. You're not yourself. You're searching for your identity as a hitter on a nightly basis. That's just really hard. And it is not atypical at all for players to need to change their environment in order to rediscover who they are.
