Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein shot down speculation that he was looking to return to the Red Sox.
Epstein, 45, who left as Red Sox GM after the 2011 season to take his current position with the Cubs, has been the center of speculation about a possible return to Boston after the Red Sox' firing of their president of baseball operations, Dave Dombrowski, earlier this month.
The latest Epstein speculation came Wednesday in a column by Alex Speier in the Boston Globe, the newspaper owned by Red Sox principal owner John Henry, who elevated Epstein to GM with the Sox in 2003.
Epstein was at the helm of the Red Sox in 2004 when they won their first World Series title since 1918 and was running the Cubs in 2016 when they won it all for the first time since 1908. The current Cubs have lost eight in a row and were eliminated from the wild-card race in the National League on Wednesday night. Rumors of major offseason changes with the both the Cubs and Red Sox abound. Cubs manager Joe Maddon is rumored to be on the way out and Epstein's second in command in Chicago, former Red Sox executive Jed Hoyer, is also a rumored target to succeed Dombrowski.
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