Theo Epstein used to be the general manager of the Boston Red Sox, which means he had the unfortunate job of having to interact with right wing conspiracy meme-lover Curt Schilling.
Epstein, now the general manager of the Cubs, joined the Pardon My Take podcast, to discuss how negotiations with Schilling went after Schilling fired his agent.
As you might guess, they went pretty hilariously.
Epstein: So we were negotiating back and forth. He had fired his agent and he was representing himself. We were negotiating a contract extension back and forth.
PMT: That’s a mismatch. (Laughs)
Epstein: Yeah, that’s what I thought. I thought we were doing pretty well in the negotiations. So we reach a deal. We’re happy with it and we go back to print it out in his little home office. We were using his computer and his printer to print it out and there on his desk is a well-worn dog-eared copy of the book Negotiating for Dummies…Every time he was pretending to go to the bathroom, he was running back and looking at that book.
Given that Schilling’s other attempt at the business world also went very poorly, this is very believable. Schilling told WEEI in Boston that even though the book was there, he wasn’t using it.
In a text message to WEEI.com, Schilling said the book was a gag gift from his attorney.
“The book was there absolutely. But no, hate to bust the bubble, it wasn’t referenced,” he wrote. “It was a gag gift from my lawyer when he heard they were coming in to negotiate and we were laughing about how it was going to go.”
Another day, another L for Curt Schilling.