TO PRAISE THEO, NOT TO BURY HIM: I love the Theo Epstein story: Boy-wonder gets promoted to GM of his hometown ballclub, takes 'em to their long-awaited World Series championship.

From everything I've heard and read, he sounds like a heck of a guy. I think I'd like him. And yet...I've had about enough of this drama, the idea that this story is anything more than a new general manager for a baseball team.

C'mon, guys. "This will make me stronger," says Epstein. The principal owner Henry near tears. (It's all in the story, in hand-wringing commentaries across every medium.)

Thing is, all the talk about having to put body and soul into the job, the sacrifices...this ridiculous world of professional sports where the coaches and execs give up a normal family life for some kind of manufactured glory...it's, well, silly.

I'm a sports fan. I get what it is to be carried away by the uberstory, the metastory of your favorite athlete or team. But this thing, this fandom, is a kind of willful suspension of disbelief. It's not real. Somehow I'm not so sure Epstein, who's been doing this since he was 18, remembers that this whole mess is over a dumb job that pays him a fortune. The kid was blessed. Here's hoping he's blessed again. And even more, here's hoping he learns how to lighten up a bit. (Granted, the whole Red Sox Nation needs a chill pill, which is one of the reasons Manny's going to be Manny somewhere other than Boston next year.)