CHICAGO — Five years ago, Theo Epstein took a job that even his friends called career suicide.
A wunderkind who had guided the Boston Red Sox to their first World Series victory in 86 years, Epstein chose to double down on that feat — by agreeing in 2011 to lead the colossally vexed Chicago Cubs, whose fruitless quest for a World Series championship began after 1908.
When he was the newly named president of baseball operations, fans would stop Epstein on the streets of Chicago and launch into conversations that had a recurring refrain: “My dad is 87 years old and has been waiting all his life to see the Cubs win a World Series — what should I tell him?