01:00 AM EST on Tuesday, December 13, 2005

If Theo comes back, Larry's got to go.

It's that simple. Unfortunately, nothing is simple for the rudderless Red Sox, who yesterday named 31-year-old Ben Cherington and 32-year-old Jed Hoyer as co-general managers for the 2006 season.

Two heads are better than one? Not in this case, which ought to make Red Sox fans shake their heads over the direction the franchise is headed. Which appears to be down, down, down, in the increasingly competitive A.L. East.

The combo of Cherington and Hoyer isn't a two-headed monster. More like a two-headed puppy dog.

They worked for Theo before, and don't be surprised -- not that anything the Red Sox do these days is likely to surprise you -- if they're soon working for him again.

Yes, it's looking more and more as if, unlike Larry, Robert and Kevin, Theo will indeed be walking back through that door.

If you want to understand the Red Sox, you'd be much better off reading Nicolo Machiavelli's The Prince than Michael Lewis' Moneyball.

There are more mysterious machinations going on behind the scenes at Fenway Park than there ever were in the plot-filled palaces of Merry Ol' England, back in the days when heads literally would roll as power changed hands.

The way things have gone since Theo, the Boy Genius, walked away from contract negotiations at the end of October, it wouldn't have been surprising to see the name of Rasputin, the mad monk, crop up as a candidate for the GM job.

Especially considering the way introverted owner John Henry seems to react to the latest posting on whatever Web site he happens to be surfing in between keeping tabs on the performance of the investments that made him even richer than Manny Ramirez, if not necessarily a whole lot smarter.

Because if Henry ran his hedge fund the way he does his ball club, he'd be standing on Yawkey Way with a sign saying "Will work for food."

Which Lucchino may be doing in the near future.

It was clear that Henry never wanted Epstein to leave. There were tears in the principal owner's eyes at the press conference when Theo and the Sox parted company. Now, it appears increasingly likely that Henry will belatedly bring back the Boy Wonder.

Which means that Lucchino will have to go.

Lucchino seemed to have everything going his way when Epstein walked out the door. If he had moved quickly to name a general manager, he would have outmanuevered Epstein and kept him on the outside looking in. But it looks like Henry wouldn't let him.

It was going to be difficult enough to find a top-notch baseball man willing to work with Larry looking over his shoulder, monitoring every move. Lucchino is a control freak with an ego, someone who doesn't want anyone in the organization to outshine him.

But what made the search almost impossible was that Lucchino apparently also had to find a GM that Henry liked as much as the gone, albeit not very far, and certainly not forgotten, Theo.

Settling on Cherington and Hoyer -- or, more accurately, settling for Cherington and Hoyer -- is not a plus for Lucchino.

If Epstein returns, as it appears increasingly likely, he won't be coming back to be bat boy. He'll be in a controlling position, which would seem to leave Lucchino in an untenable position.

It's the world's worst-kept secret that the two of them no longer can work together, that they cannot peacefully co-exist, that the power no longer can be shared.

Lucchino had a chance to truly make the Sox his team, to assert his control. He either couldn't do it, or John Henry wouldn't let him do it.

It's not as if Epstein is irreplaceable. While he deserves tremendous credit for playing a major role in assembling the team that won Boston's first World Series in 86 years, he also has to take the blame for replacing Pedro Martinez and Derek Lowe in the rotation withsMatt ClementsandsDavid Wellss-- both of whom the Red Sox are eager to get rid of after just one season, as they just did high-priced shortstop Edgar Renteria.

Nor was Theo ever able to fix Boston's season-long bullpen problem. And it also was Epstein who engineered the expensive signing of Renteria.

In a glaring indication of just how poorly the Sox currently are being run, they had to agree to pay the Atlanta Braves as much as perhaps $11 million over the next three years to get them to take Renteria off their hands, in exchange for a promising, but still unproven, prospect in Andy Marte.

The Braves have to be laughing all the way to the bank at having extracted cash from Henry's coffers in that deal.

Right now, Henry is looking like one of those owners with more money than sense. There has been too much nonsense going on in Boston since the playoffs ended in a three-game sweep at the hands of the White Sox. Perhaps the return of Epstein could put a stop to it.

But if Theo's comeback doesn't mean the departure of Lucchino, then the organization is going to look even more ridiculous -- the problems that have been plaguing the front office only exacerbated, rather than eliminated.