When 28-year-old Theo Epstein was named the general manager of the Red Sox in November 2002, the mission statement was slightly but irrefutably different than what it is for 36-year-old Chaim Bloom, who was named the Red Sox’ chief baseball officer Monday.
Then, the goal was to win a championship, singular, to end the drought and the curse, to exorcise all ghosts, to alter Red Sox history for the better after so many agonizing autumns.
After one more agonizing autumn – perhaps the most agonizing of all — in October 2003, that goal was accomplished the following fall, and in the most satisfying, affirming, see-following-this-stupid-team-so-passionately-was-worth-it way imaginable.