In October 2011, when Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer were hired to run baseball operations for the Cubs, and again three years later when they added Joe Maddon as field manager, one of their stated goals was to change the losing culture that had surrounded the Cubs for decades. It permeated every level of the organization, from baseball ops to business ops to the clubhouse.
Those three men reached that goal in only a few years. I’m not just talking about winning the 2016 World Series; it seemed that the influence of Maddon, in particular, had bounced the “lovable losers” image from the Cubs clubhouse forever.