It was almost a year ago that Theo Epstein walked away from his dream job, a decision that began the incredible soap opera that was last year's offseason, the decision that's not only changed the perception of Theo, but of the Red Sox, too.

Theo the Boy Wonder?

Theo the baseball genius?

Theo one of the best stories in all of baseball?

All that's in the past tense now. Fair or not, sports lives in the present tense.

And there's no doubt the perception of Theo has changed in the past year. Finishing out of the playoffs with the second highest payroll will do that to you. Watching guys you traded away having big years somewhere else will do it, too.

But much of his lost tarnish is of his own doing, goes back to that farewell press conference of a year ago, the dog and pony show that not only pointed out the dysfunction inside the palace gates, but was allowed to dominate the off-season. A scenario that made Theo a much more complicated figure than he had been before, made us look at him differently, made him the story.

And general managers shouldn't be the story. They are supposed to be in the backround, not in the footlights. In fact, you can make a case that the more a general manager is the story -- are you listening Dan Duquette? -- the more fragile is the ground he walks on. The fact Theo made himself the story changed everything.

We like simple story lines in sports. Good versus bad. Win or lose. Get the big hit, or fail to get the big hit. Much of sports skims along the surface like a ground ball through the infield.

So it was with Epstein when he first became the Red Sox general manager, anointed at 28, the frog who dreamed of being a king and then became one, courtesy of Larry Lucchino, who pushed to give Theo a shot when it could have been argued that being the Sox general manager should not be on-the-job training. What was a better story then? The kid who literally grew up a fly ball away from Fenway growing up to run the Red Sox, then winning the World Series in only his second year on the job, the first time in 86 years the old towne team had done so.

Move over Hollywood.

No matter that if Mariano Rivera -- the best closer in baseball history -- protects a one-run lead in the ninth inning of the fourth game of the ALCS in 2004 all of this looks differently. The Sox won, Theo was the Boy Wonder, and never was heard a disparaging word.

Until last fall.

Until the word leaked out that he and Lucchino were at each other's throats.

Until Theo became a lot more complicated.

At one level it seemed like your basic power struggle. At another, it was almost Shakespearean, the son trying to overthrow the father, the protege trying to symbolically slay the mentor. On still another, it was the emerging portrait of Theo as unrelentingly ambitious, wanting both more money and more power, two pursuits best done in private.

So there was Theo a year ago at the press conference inside Fenway, complete with the news that a couple of days before he had snuck out of his office one night in a gorilla suit. There was Theo saying he had given his heart and soul to the Red Sox and ``I came to the conclusion that I can no longer do that.'' There was Theo walking away from the dream job, complete with the adoration of the fans, secure in the knowledge that his place in Boston sports history was cemented, walking away with a certain immortality.

Until, of course, he didn't walk away.

Until, of course, the rumors started saying he was coming back, rumors that turned out to be true, Epstein returning as the general manager in January.

That was the mistake.

And it's more than the fact that several of his trades have blown up in his face, each one an attack on the mystique that once enveloped him. More than his team self-destructed in the second half of the season. Even more than the fact that this was his team, in ways it hadn't been before, courtesy of his winning the power struggle with Lucchino.

It's that he tried to get his innocence back, tried to go back when he was still the simple story, the kid from down the street who had found a way to win the World Series, roll the credits, fade to black. Tried to go back to when he was perceived to be the boy genius, the ultimate baseball stat guy, leading the Sox into some glorious future. Tried to go back to a simpler time before his struggle with Lucchino became as big a story as there was in Boston sports. As if him coming back wiped the slate clean.

Sorry.

Sometimes no one wins in power struggles. Not even the one who wins them.

And perception is like an infield pop up; it blows in the wind.

Would all this be different if the Sox were in the playoffs?

Probably.

But they are not, and now Theo stands in the ruins of this season, now caught between his vision of building for the future and the unrelenting pressure of winning now, all against the backdrop of the growing sentiment that this season rests on the upheaval of last winter, the dysfunction that became too public, the lack of a general manager for too long. The growing sentiment that this season's failure was the result of Theo's vacillation, his hubris, his making himself the offseason story.

The growing sentiment his world is much more complicated than it was a year ago, and much of that is his own doing.

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