All right, joining us now, as promised, President of the Chicago Cubs, Theo Epstein, who joins us from Chicago.

There are Chicago being here later in the week to play the Red Sox.

So, Theo, let's start with the obvious question, at least as far as I'm concerned.

When you were here, and I'd covered that team in 2005 after the Red Sox Championship in 2004,

my recollection, Theo, was that that whole year was a grind. It was like one big hangover that ultimately, I think, caught up to the team in October. You know, you were swept in the first round by the White Sox eight years. So my question now is with the Cubs, how do you combat that? Yeah, you know, it was a grind. I actually looked it up after we won, just thinking about how to tackle some of those issues. And I was surprised to see that we actually won 95 games that year. It didn't seem like 95, which is a lot. It didn't seem like 95 games. Because from opening day on, you remember, I think Schilling had an injury in spring training, so we ended up David Wells pitched our opener and we got beat at Yankee Stadium

Matt Clement pitched You remember, I think Schilling had an injury in spring training, so we ended up. David Wells pitched our opener, and we got beat at Yankee Stadium. Matt Cleman pitched the second game, I think, and we got beat. And then right before the third game of the season of Yankee Stadium, Tito had heart palpitation. Exactly. Tito and I ended up watching or listening on the radio to the third game of the season at Yankee Stadium from his hospital room. And even though we were defending world champions, we were both so nervous because we're like, God, if we got swept by the Yankees to start our title defense, this is going to be just an epic debacle. We ended up squeezing that game out. But, yeah, the whole year it was a grind. We had a lot of injuries. We had a lot of attrition and fatigue, and we probably deserved to not win in the first

round of the playoffs.

It wasn't like a fluke that we got knocked out.

So the part that's tricky is how much do you attribute that to just randomness?

How much is the fact that you played deep, deep into October the year before,

and guys are either physically or mentally tired, how much is sort of attitude, any complacency

or entitlement that might come having one the year before? It's really impossible to diagnose.

Do you see any similarities now? Do you see any of the same elements?

No, I think you just have to be aware that those

potential pitfalls exist and so having learned a little bit from the experience both in 05 and

08 actually at both those years we actually won 95 games you know in 08 we we got within one

swing of the bat of getting back to the world series but um the one one thing i thing I learned is that it's just better to get those issues on the table.

So instead of assuming that, hey, it's the same great bunch of guys back the next year,

I'm sure we'll have the same great chemistry and everyone will opt in to the team concept again.

And guys will deal with the the world series

hangover individually because they're smart guys what made last year so special was that we all opted

into the team concept guys put the team first before their individual interests we all got to

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