CLEVELAND – “F--- yeah!” Theo Epstein screamed out as he walked through a hallway inside Progressive Field’s visiting clubhouse, handing an unopened bottle of champagne to Ron Coomer, the WSCR-AM 670 radio analyst who grew up in Chicago’s south suburbs and once played for the Cubs, but really just happened to be standing there.
His black suit completely drenched, Epstein needed to find Cleveland Indians manager Terry Francona and congratulate him on a great season that ended in Game 7 of the World Series. Together, they had won two championships with the Boston Red Sox and the Cubs president wanted to pay his respects after an 8-7 win that had been 108 years in the making.
Before this clubhouse became a stuffy, sweaty maze jammed with players, coaches, scouts, reporters and extended families early Thursday morning, Epstein had walked by the weight room during the rain delay and noticed the hitters had gathered together. To that point, the Cubs and Indians had played nine innings to a 6-6 draw in front of a sellout crowd and a massive TV audience.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Bay Area and California sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
“They were all meeting,” Epstein said. “I saw their backs and I, like, pushed the door ajar and they were all saying: ‘This is only going to make it sweeter! Stay together! Let’s keep grinding! It’s our time!’”
Epstein has a Yale University education and a law degree, but he’s never been a propeller head or easy to label. He loved Kyle Schwarber’s nonstop energy and gym-rat mentality when he saw him at Indiana University and pushed to make him the No. 4 overall pick in the 2014 draft.
Almost seven full months after an outfield collision would force him to get “season-ending surgery” on his left knee to reconstruct his ACL and repair his LCL, Schwarber began the 10th-inning rally with a hard-hit single into right field.
READ MORE AT CSNChicago.com