CHICAGO — A Bears cap on his head, Chicago Cubs President Theo Epstein hopped two planes to Pensacola, Fla., last week. There, he drove to an R.V. park on the beach to find Joe Maddon.
Maddon, in the middle of a cross-country road trip with his wife in their Winnebago, had opted out of his contract with the Tampa Bay Rays. As the sun dipped along the Gulf of Mexico, Maddon, his wife and Epstein, joined by Epstein’s general manager, Jed Hoyer, set up lawn chairs in the sand, and Epstein tried to sell Maddon on becoming the next Cubs manager.
Maddon, it turned out, wanted the Cubs as badly as they wanted him. He officially signed a five-year contract and was introduced at a news conference on Monday as the Cubs’ manager.
“This is a magical place,” Maddon said.
But before the business of the Cubs’ future could be fully embraced, Epstein and Maddon had to address some dirty laundry: accusations of tampering and criticism over the treatment of the Cubs’ previous manager, Rick Renteria, who was not fired until Friday.
Epstein said he had learned of Maddon’s free agency through his agent, only after an out clause came into effect when Tampa Bay’s general manager, Andrew Friedman, bolted for the Los Angeles Dodgers last month. After Maddon failed to reach a new deal with the Rays, he hit the open market, and the Cubs pounced after Epstein checked with Major League Baseball. Hoyer was dispatched to San Diego to apprise Renteria of the situation.
Epstein denied the tampering charge but admitted that Renteria had deserved better.
“It was very awkward,” Epstein said. “We didn’t want to put Rick in a bad spot; we didn’t want him to suffer; we didn’t want him to twist in the wind. We did what we had to do, and we wanted to make sure we did it in humane a way as possible.”
Maddon, too, expressed remorse but said he had been concerned only about his own contract negotiations — first with the Rays and then with the Cubs.
“All I did was exercise the right within my contract,” Maddon said. “It wasn’t my responsibility to gauge how other organizations ran their organizations.”
Now Maddon, 60, will turn his attention to the task at hand: ending Wrigleyville’s 107-year World Series drought, as the Cubs attempt to transition from also-rans to contenders entering Epstein’s fourth season in charge. The Cubs finished fifth in the National League Central in each of his first three seasons.
“I’m going to talk playoffs and I’m going to talk World Series this year,” Maddon said. “I promise you I am, and I’m going to believe it.”
Maddon spent 31 years in the Angels organization and the past nine as Tampa Bay’s manager. There, his costume-themed road trips and clubhouse antics — as well as his success on the Rays’ shoestring budget — earned him a reputation as a renaissance man. Throughout the years, his teams dressed as Johnny Cash, as nerds and in camouflage. He brought penguins and a 20-foot-long python to the clubhouse. He also won two American League Manager of the Year awards, compiled a 754-705 record and led the Rays to the 2008 World Series, two seasons after losing 101 games.
Before he landed in Tampa Bay, Maddon interviewed with Epstein for a managerial vacancy in Boston before the 2004 season. He was passed over in favor of Terry Francona, and the Red Sox won their first World Series title in 86 years. Epstein’s Red Sox and Maddon’s Rays spent the next decade going head-to-head in the American League East.
“Comparing him to when I interviewed him a decade ago, he’s got the confidence,” Epstein said. “He’s done it, and he knows it works. All he has to do is be himself and he can win.”
The Cubs have brought in big-name managers before. Dusty Baker and Lou Piniella each made stops here recently after long histories of success, only to succumb to Wrigley Field’s pressures. Now Chicago turns to Epstein, one of the architects of the first championship team in Boston in generations, and Maddon, a quirky skipper from Hazleton, a small coal town in Pennsylvania.
“That was then, this is now,” Maddon said. “This is a one-in-107-year opportunity.”
Epstein was hired in 2011 and has presided over three losing seasons. But the Cubs, by Epstein’s design, were rebuilding.
They traded away all their veteran talent, most recently Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel to Oakland during the summer, while Epstein built the scouting department and stocked the minor leagues with some of baseball’s most impressive young talent.
Maddon said that the Cubs’ player-development system was among the most attractive pieces of the organization. And much of the talent — which includes Jorge Soler and Kris Bryant, Baseball America’s 2014 minor league player of the year — is now in the major leagues, or knocking at the door.
The news conference took place at a bar across the street from Wrigley, where the famous bleachers are a pile of rubble — part of the first phase of a long-awaited, $575 million renovation.
Indeed, there was so much good cheer flowing Monday that Maddon ended the news conference with an offer to buy a round for everyone in attendance.
“A shot and a beer,” he said. “That’s the Hazleton way.”