Lucchino-bashers, and they are legion, maintain that he repeatedly has undermined Theo and on occasion killed deals made by Epstein and the minions. There was one, for sure. When Theo's assistant Josh Byrnes (hired by Arizona as GM Friday) made a deal with Colorado, Epstein thought he had a better deal with another club and requested that Lucchino fall on the sword and invoke the ownership approval clause to kill the Rockies deal. Accustomed to people hating him, Lucchino took the fall, killing the deal and saving Epstein.
This from Red Sox principal owner John Henry, last night on the Sons of Sam Horn board:
In the Colorado deal late one night I called Theo with questions about that deal in comparison to the one the we actually ended up doing. I preferred the one we did. I didn’t want to give up prospects when we had a comparable alternative that involved paying dollars in lieu of prospects. It was that simple and that innocent. How Larry or anyone else got the blame – I have not a clue. What I didn’t know at the time was that Colorado made a trade thinking I was going to rubber stamp it that night, because that is usually what happens. It’s never been reported that I stepped into the middle of that. I wrote a note of apology to Josh over it, but Larry received the blame in the following days in the media. Then Theo took responsibility a few days later but the stories still continue about it.
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