01:00 AM EST on Thursday, January 26, 2006

Theo is back, he and Larry Lucchino seem to be getting ready for a public hug, and the air is full of words about implementing "new mechanisms which enhance internal comunication and which enhance external communication." Words that have more to do with some corporate board room than they do with a locker room.

Enough already.

It's time to put a tent over this circus and roll it out of town.

The sight of dirty laundry fluttering in the breeze never is a pretty one, whether it's in your neighbor's backyard or in the Red Sox' front office. And that's what this has been for almost three months now, all the palace secrets out in the open, the feud between Epstein and Lucchino, the cluelessness of John Henry, all of it; a tale better suited for Shakespeare than SportsCenter, all about power and ego and ambition, not to mention the always-loaded relationship between mentor and protégé.

Was Lucchino threatened by Theo's increasing popularity, intent on putting the kid he had once anointed in his place?

Or was Theo the ungrateful protégé who forgot that without Lucchino anointing him, none of his fame ever would have happened?

Was it some combination of the two?

Whatever, it's all probably more than we ever needed to know.

Both have been tarnished by the last 11 weeks, regardless of all the banalities now about more of a shared vision, blah, blah, blah. John Henry can say Lucchino's role has not changed, but there's little question he's been publicly wounded. From the moment Theo walked away, Lucchino was cast as the villain in this little passion play, no small thing for the public face of the franchise, the organization's voice.

Now?

The perception is he's been compromised, no matter how John Henry tries to spin it. There are winners in power struggles. There are losers, too. Color in Lucchino. He's the one with the big "L" stamped on his forehead.

Nor is Theo quite the white knight he was before this sorry little spectacle played itself out. Ego? Ambition? Those are qualities that play better inside closed rooms than in the public arena. There always is going to be a segment of people that now is going to view Epstein as a spoiled brat, a star in his own movie, someone who created all this turmoil under the guise of "principle," only to come back 11 weeks later without ever saying what that principle was.

Yes, the Red Sox certainly are better with him back. But he always was such a great story, the kid who had grown up in the shadow of Fenway Park and became the general manager who brought the first World Series to Boston in 86 years. He still is. Only now it's a little more layered. Yesterday, the Boston Herald had Theo's face under a big, bold headline, "Tantrum's Over," on the front page.

Then again, how many guys do you know who walk away from their dream job and then come back 11 weeks later, as if it was merely some little blip on the radar screen, no harm, no foul?

The Red Sox also have been tarnished. Until now, this new ownership group had done everything right. For the last 11 weeks or so, they have been a textbook example of dysfunction, operating out of the ol' Tom Yawkey playbook, complete now with all the backpedaling that comes with it. Like John Henry saying, "This never has been an issue for us -- only in the media."

Yeah, right.

So has the circus closed down for a while?

We can only hope.

If we wanted front-office turmoil, we would watch The Apprentice. Frankly, front-office machinations are boring. We are sports fans because we like games, not business deals. No one stopped buying tickets the last couple of months because Theo wasn't there, however upset fans were that he had left. The front office is a necessary evil. And what we have had the last few days is something right out of a Harvard Business School seminar, with talk of flow charts and organizational philosophy and other things to make your eyes glaze over.

Enough already.

Sports is the ultimate bottom-line business, individuals judged on how they perform. A front office is no exception. Ultimately, it will be judged by how the team does, nothing more. Theo is riding high this morning, but if the team doesn't perform to fans' expectations, that will disappear like frost in the noonday sun. Same with Lucchino. Win a lot of games and all of this goes away, as obsolete as yesterday's news.

For in the end, no one cares about the front office. They care about the team on the field.

Theo is back?

Great.

Now if he could only play center field.

breynold@projo.com / (401) 277-7340