Goodbye, Theo. You will be missed.

Only a hyphen differentiates the word resign from re-sign. It was somewhat of a rollercoaster ride for fans when now ex-Red Sox general manager, Theo Epstein first made it clear he was to re-sign with the Sox; only to resign hours before his contract ended.

There are plenty of people out there asking, what the hell happened. I'm going with the answer that upper management toyed around with Theo, and he simply couldn't take it anymore. He valued pride and dignity over his dream job and walked away.

When Epstein first became the Red Sox GM, I was skeptical just like anyone else. He was young and inexperienced. He wasn't much older than me! Could someone like that run an organization like the Sox? All that money, all the pressure. Would he just crack and end up squandering our next five years of hopes? The answer came soon enough as a resounding NO, as 2004 came and went. The man made some gutsy moves, got a little lucky, and tagged World Series Championship to his resume.

Despite my skepticism at the time, I was also pretty excited. The guy was young, he was a fan, and he was from Boston. Because of his young age, I could sort of relate to him. It was a nice change too not having some old foggie making conservative run-of-the-mill decisions. Theo was cool. Of course he wasn't perfect, and I was pissed when he overhauled the 2005 team when he may have been better off leaving it as it is. No one would blame him for keeping the team in tact. Definitely not after the amazing 2004 season.

Either way, I'm going to keep this short and simple. Its no use arguing or nitpicking. The point is, I thought Theo would be with the Sox for a long long time. Now he's gone, and most are sad to see him leave.

Goodbye Theo, and good luck.