After helping the Chicago Cubs break their 108-year championship drought, team president Theo Epstein was named Fortune’s No. 1 World Leader.
Fortune praised Epstein for the team’s turnaround calling him the “wunderkind executive” who wisely modeled the Cubs after the Boston Red Sox.
Epstein, however, is not buying it. Esptein had a fantastic reaction to the title, scoffing at it to ESPN’s Buster Olney.
“Um, I can’t even get my dog to stop peeing in the house. That is ridiculous. The whole thing is patently ridiculous. It’s baseball–a pastime involving a lot of chance. If Zobrist’s ball is three inches farther off the line, I’m on the hot seat for a failed five-year plan. And I’m not even the best leader in our organization; our players are.”
Esptein rounded off the top five, finishing ahead of Alibaba’s Jack Ma, Pope Francis, Melinda Gates, and Jeff Bezos.
Of course, Epstein has been central in the Cubs’ turnaround. He’s placed an emphasis on character and strategy, creating a culture that tops many franchises, to say nothing of the team’s solid drafting and free-agency work.
Regardless of his success in dog training, Epstein has done a good job with, as Fortune puts it, baseball’s most “lovable losers.”
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