Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
It truly feels great to be a Cub today.
I don't want to be buried in a Red Sox casket.
You've just got to kind of play the hand you're dealt.
If I let my brain follow its path unfettered, it would be kinda ugly.
I think everyone deserves more than one World Series every 108 years so.
To win the World Series, you have to be able to do a lot of things well.
The only time I think about my contract is when I'm asked about it by the media.
It's a human phenomenon that there has to be a reason for everything. There almost never is.
Be intentional about the spaces you create but not at the cost of compromising other elements.
I believe in the First Amendment. But I also believe we should be mindful of how other people feel.
Whoever your boss is, or your bosses are, they have 20 percent of their job that they just don't like.
Watching the Dodgers perform at a really high level is a nice reminder to us as to how high the bar is.
I want to thank everyone who has ever put on a Cubs uniform and anyone who has ever rooted for the Cubs.
The Red Sox hadn't won in 86 years when we took over. We didn't run from that challenge - we embraced it.
It took me coming to the Midwest to realize I was the jerk. People are so nice here. They're so grounded.
There are a lot of ways to make a positive impact on the community without necessarily being a politician.
No one is immune to needing to sit or needing to go down at the right time, and you want to give guys a chance.
I think people want the Cubs to succeed, and by extension, they want people associated with the Cubs to succeed.
You have years where most things go your way, and you have years where more things than usual seem like a challenge.
Failure is inherent in the game. So if you don't respond well to adversity, you're probably not going to have a long career.
There's nothing I hate more than someone who speaks in the draft room with absolute conviction, but they have nothing to back it up.
We try to do a great job of understanding the opposing hitter and his tendencies. Maybe understand the hitter better than he knows himself.
It stinks to give up a good player. But if you think that way, you'll never make any trades. You have to focus on what you're getting back.
Failure happens to everyone in this game. It's not something worth harping on. What is worth focusing on is how you respond to that failure.
We want to try and transform the Red Sox into a team like the Braves or the Yankees, where you can almost count on the postseason every year.
We don't live in isolation. Most people don't like working in isolation - some do, but they typically don't end up playing Major League Baseball.
When we build that foundation for sustained success, and it ultimately results in a World Series, it's going to be more than just a World Series.
Once you thrust yourself out there in the public domain, it's really hard to retreat, to say no or reclaim that certain part of your life as private.
As I sat back and imagined what my transition from the Red Sox might be, I thought it would smell more like champagne than beer, I guess you would say.
Even idiots can grow up a little bit. It should be a bit more subdued. ... The first celebration should be subdued, and the fourth one should be crazy.
I work for the Chicago Cubs, a team with a following so loyal and adoring and a history so forlorn that we were known nationwide as the Loveable Losers.
The leadoff-hitter thing, I think, it's always nice to have an established leadoff hitter and to have someone who can really get on base and set the tone.
If multiple starting pitchers underperform at the same time, it's always going to leave you in a stretch where it's hard to play better than .500 baseball.
I chose my classes based on which professors did not take attendance, and then I traded Padres tickets for notes from class. I wasn't the student of the month.
I'm not going to try to deny that I'm a Red Sox fan. I grew up a Red Sox fan, had a great decade here that I really enjoyed, and that will always be a part of me.
The 2011 Cubs were the oldest team in the division, the most expensive team in the division, and the worst team in the division. And we really needed to start over.
It's always different when a guy gets drafted and developed and comes up in his first organization and makes an impact. There's something special and timeless about it.
Having a relentless lineup full of professional hitters works on so many levels. It works in terms of pure baseball reasons: if you get on base, you're going to score runs.
We've made plenty of mistakes. But the ones that we've hit on, we've gotten lucky with some impact guys back, some best-case scenarios as far as how the guys have turned out.
I just saw over the years that the times that we did remarkable things, it was always because players didn't want to let each other down. Players wanted to lift each other up.
If the seller has a player that they think is going to have a lot of value, they're aware of it, protect that value. You have to go get it. That's the way the trade market works.
Communication is different in the clubhouse than it is in a boardroom. The heartbeat that exists in the clubhouse, you don't find that same type of heartbeat in the front office.
I like to have some privacy, especially where my family is concerned, so when I'm recognized, I'll usually say something like 'I get that all the time' or 'Theo Epstein? Who's that?'
I still wake up thinking about draft choices we should have made that would have impacted the franchise for a long time, but I don't wake up thinking about one individual player move.
You're not always going to get the outcomes you feel like your talent deserves, that you feel like the big picture deserves. And what's real is how do you respond in those situations?
Tolerance is important, especially in a democracy. The ability to have honest conversations, even if you come from a different place, a difference perspective, is fundamentally important.
I believe in our players. That's why they're here. I also know slumping is part of baseball. What's surprising is sometimes when it lasts awhile, for really good players when it lasts awhile.
There has to be active, hands-on management in concert with the manager to lead the organization and make sure that the standards that we set for the organization as a whole are being lived up to.
When something goes wrong on the field, we expect our players to take the blame, step up, and proactively assume the blame for it, even if it's not their fault. That's the way to be a good teammate.
Players that tend to respond to adversity the right way and triumph in the end are players with strong character. If you have enough guys like that in the clubhouse, you have an edge on the other team.