The teams Epstein and his staff assembled came within one bad pitch of going to back-to-back World Series. They won the entire thing in 2004 with the greatest comeback from the brink of disaster in the history of professional sports. After falling behind three games to zero to the hated Yankees in last year's American League Championship Series, they swept the final four games and then four straight against the St. Louis Cardinals to bring the first World Series championship to Fenway Park since 1918.

From that moment on Theo was "the kid'' no more. Now he was a celebrity. He was an icon. He was, perhaps, beyond Lucchino's control.

This year was a struggle however, beginning with the decision to offer Pedro Martinez a deal they knew he wouldn't take and ending with a sweep of the Red Sox by the soon-to-be world champion Chicago White Sox in the first round of the playoffs. In between, there was much turmoil in the locker room and growing tension between Lucchino, who may be the most publicly seen club president in baseball, and Epstein, who on several occasions indicated he didn't agree with his boss' way of airing the team's dirty linen in the local media.

The Friends of Theo keep saying this was not a power struggle. Yet at the same time, well-placed leaks hinted at "chain of command issues'' that indicated Epstein may no longer want to report to the man who created him but instead directly to team owner John Henry.

Certainly one thing is clear after Epstein rejected the Red Sox's $1.2 million-a-year offer. It's not about the money for once. Now he's got the money in a contract that would be only $400,000 short of the one Atlanta Braves' G.M. John Schuerholz has. Schuerholz is believed to be the highest-paid general manager in the game who has no other title (like club president, etc.), at $1.6 million. He's built teams that have won 14 straight division titles (which happens to be 14 more than Epstein's Red Sox) and one world championship (which happens to be the same as Epstein's Red Sox).

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So no one can say the Red Sox didn't make a fair offer to their fair-haired boy. Then again, their first offer was only 20 percent of what they offered Beane three years ago to accomplish exactly what Epstein has accomplished — which was to finally bring a world championship team to Boston's loyal and long-suffering fans. He did it. Now he wants the man who gave him that opportunity to stand down. Or at least stand back and let him run the show his way, which is decidedly less public than Lucchino's way.

How many baseball club president's have their own local radio show?

One. Theo would probably like to see that number reduced by ... well ... one.

How many club presidents don't make more than the employee who answers to them? None. Theo would probably like to see that number increased by ... well ... one.

How many club president's are going to sit there and let a kid who won't be 32 until Dec. 29 do to him what he let the kid do to well-respected long-time baseball men like former G.M. Mike Port, whom Epstein and his cabal of young computer geeks treated like he was Methuselah until he finally left the organization? Theo would probably like to see that number increased by ... well ... one ... but he may be in for a surprise there.

What happened at Fenway Park was a blatant power grab by a kid who believes his press clippings and is willing to walk.

By turning down the Red Sox's offer, he put himself at odds with Lucchino and senior management, which meant he had to go. In fact, World Series ring or no World Series ring, he's still a junior in Lucchino's eyes. Still "the kid.'' Still the guy he plucked out of the press release writing department of the game and put into baseball operations in San Diego when he just as easily could have taken someone else out of the backroom.

When he turned the keys to the car over to Epstein three years ago in Boston, Lucchino trusted him to take it where it needed to go, but he never expected a car jacking. But he might have known all along what could happen if he'd taken to heart the words of Epstein's father, a Boston University creative writing professor, when he was first asked to comment on his then 28-year-old son's appointment to general manager of the Red Sox.

"What's the fuss?'' Leslie Epstein said at the time. "At Theo's age, Alexander The Great was already general manager of the world.''

Now Lucchino is trying to deal with Theo the Great, the kid who forgot how he got the job in the first place. Within the next 24 to 72 hours, somebody is going to blink. Within the next 24 to 72 hours, John Henry is going to step in and end all of this one way or the other. If Epstein is truly willing to pack and leave, then he can't lose. If he isn't, he may have to be reminded by his father that things didn't end so well for Alexander the Great either. He drank himself to death at 33, drunk as much on his own power as on the fine taste of a good wine.