Adam Hunger / AP file

By rejecting two contract offers, Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein had put himself at odds with management.

This time it wasn't really about the money.

This time it was about the student wanting to challenge the teacher.

It was about the long-compliant aide wanting to flex his muscles at the expense of his mentor. It was the son needing to step out of the shadow of his father.

From the first moment Theo Epstein entered the real world of baseball he owed it all to Larry Lucchino. That continued right up to the moment the Red Sox won the World Series for the first time in 86 years. Right then all debts were paid. Epstein was no longer the youngest general manager in baseball, something Lucchino made him two years earlier at 28.

He wasn't the young acolyte serving at the feet of his king any more. Now he was the guy who did what nine general managers before him over a span of nearly 90 years could not do. He was the general manager who signed Curt Schilling and Kevin Foulke. He had the cajones to trade franchise fixture Nomar Garciaparra in the middle of the season and came out on top. He was what Billy Beane was supposed to be when Beane turned down Lucchino's $2.5 million a year offer to run the Red Sox after first accepting it, a shocking reversal that propelled the little known Epstein into a seat he seemed unready for.

He was the architect of a World Series champion. Period. No Lucchino included.

Now there have always been whispers around Boston that Epstein was a puppet, his strings pulled by Lucchino. At the time Beane reversed his field, some in baseball felt it was in part because of Lucchino's hands-on nature. Whatever the reason, Beane stayed in Oakland and Lucchino elevated Epstein. Now the Red Sox club president is reaping what he sowed.

When Lucchino first came to Boston from San Diego, he brought an unknown kid named Epstein with him to serve as assistant general manager. At the time he said of him, "This is a gifted person with a real opportunity to have a profound impact on this franchise.''

Lucchino had no idea at the time how right he was. Now, Epstein, after turning down a three-year contract offer worth an estimated $1.2 million a season that would have more than tripled his pay, is leaving.

What is obvious is that the "kid'' who started as a media relations intern in the Baltimore Orioles' front office and then served in much the same capacity in San Diego when he first got there, no longer wants to answer to the man who made it all possible. Originally the Sox tried to lowball Epstein. They wanted of him what he kept demanding at their insistence from some of their best players. They wanted a hometown discount from the kid who grew up a short walk from Fenway Park.

They didn't get it.

First he spurned a three-year deal that averaged $850,000 a season, which he could rightfully argue was well below his market value. Then he turned his back on a deal that wouldn't be that far below the one the Yankees gave Brian Cashman. Cashman's deal is for three years at $5 million for a guy who's been in the job for eight years. Epstein is still on his rookie deal, but in those three years he went from wonder boy to Wonder Boy. Now Lucchino is wondering what happened to the kid.

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Tony Gutierrez / AP

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