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STAN GROSSFELD

Theo Epstein knows how to beat a curse. Can he do it with the Cubs?

STAN GROSSFELD/Globe Staff

CHICAGO — Theo Epstein does not want to be photographed. He considers posed pictures akin to “getting a shot of penicillin.”

Nor does the Chicago Cubs’ president of baseball operations want to be interviewed.

“I really want to try to keep the focus on the team,” he writes in an e-mail.

But he will grudgingly relent after a rare two-game losing streak. Epstein is trying to keep a low profile. When the Cubs recently clinched the National League Central title, he wore a thick Groucho Marx mustache attached with double-sided tape, an Ernie Banks hat low over his head, and a T-shirt emblazoned with one of Cubs manager Joe Maddon’s favorite sayings — “Try not to suck.”

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Epstein sat in the Wrigley Field bleachers with his baseball operation pals.

“The mustache came out in my beer a few times and I had to keep putting it back on,” he says. “It was so much fun. It’s a real party out there. There’s 81 block parties.’’

He got away with it for several innings before being outed on social media. Maddon was delighted.

“I love it,” he says. “I was jealous.”

.   .   .

Epstein has had tremendous success in Chicago since fleeing Boston after the disastrous chicken and beer collapse of 2011. He transformed a team that lost 101 games in 2012 to one with the best record in baseball.

Could a Cubs-Red Sox World Series finally happen?

“That’s something to dream about, but you can’t get hung up on it,’’ he says. “We have to focus on what we have to do. The Sox are playing great ball, I certainly like their chances in October. Boston’s beautiful that time of year, as is Chicago. I’d love to spend the end of that month in those two cities.”

Epstein came to Boston in 2002 as the youngest general manager in baseball history at age 28. Two years later, the Red Sox won a world championship, shattering an 86-year-old curse. They won again under Epstein’s command in 2007.

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Theo Epstein is trying to end a 108-year championship drought for the Cubs.Stan Grossfeld/Globe Staff/Boston Globe

Despite the success, Epstein admits he made mistakes near the end of his Red Sox tenure.

“I got in too much of a rush to build an uber-team and got too aggressive in free agency rather than relying on the things we did well as an organization — scouting, player development, and trying to find undervalued players.’’

Epstein keeps an eye on the young Sox players he signed long ago.

“So if I’m flipping channels and [Xander] Bogaerts, [Mookie] Betts, or [Jackie] Bradley is up, I’ll linger longer than if it’s someone else,” he says. “I still have a lot of close friends in the Red Sox baseball operations department. I wish the Red Sox well, but we’re just so focused on having an October worthy of this club. We feel that this is a special team.”

Special enough to end a 108-year-old championship drought and make the Billy Goat curse, Steve Bartman, and the black cat all vanish.

What could possibly go wrong?

“You can’t go through life thinking about what could go wrong,’’ Epstein says with a laugh. “Personally, I’ve been through it, it doesn’t scare me. 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.”

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Epstein claims the fans are more patient in Chicago. “Bostonians vs. Chicagoans, they have different sensibilities, and I can only say this because I consider myself a Bostonian,” he says. “You know, the Puritanical roots in Boston; the sky is falling mentality a little bit. We could be on a great run and we’d lose one game and everyone’s panicking. You’ve got a three-run lead, the reliever comes in in the seventh inning, the first two pitches are balls, and you hear the murmur start going through the crowd, ‘This is it.’

“Here it is a little different. There’s some cynicism and some expectation to fail given everything that’s happened the last 108 years. But I found more of an inherent optimism. Even if the team is losing, even if things aren’t going our way, they’re still at Wrigley to have a good time. They’re not going to let a bad streak or a bad team get in the way of having fun.”

Epstein has also done some soul-searching.

“It took me coming to the Midwest to realize I was the jerk,’’ he says. “People are so nice here. They’re so grounded. It’s just different out here and the fan base reflects that. But I love them both. I think they’re the two greatest fan bases in sports.”

In a different place

Theo Epstein took over the Cubs in 2011.Stan Grossfeld/Globe Staff

Nobody calls him Young Theo anymore. He’s 42 years old now, and he sneaks home to see his wife and two sons before night games. His hair has a touch of gray but he hasn’t gained a pound.

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“Now I’m older than the players,’’ he says. “They look like kids and they treat me differently.”

It’s a long way from Brookline to the Heartland.

“I love Chicago, but I will admit the Midwest has taken some getting used to,’’ Epstein says. “Sometimes I have a panic attack when I leave the city limits. Like when I have to drive up to Milwaukee for a game, it’s pretty flat, you pass the cheese castle on the highway and I start thinking, ‘What am I doing out here?’ ”

Epstein also is diplomatic when discussing which is the better ballpark, Fenway or Wrigley?

“That’s a Sophie’s Choice if I ever heard one for me. Fenway is home; it’s in my blood,’’ he says. “I just feel at home there. At Fenway, I think about going to games as a young kid, with my twin brother holding my Dad’s hand, sitting in the grandstand, learning a lot about the game and about life. So that’s special to me and will never be surpassed. But Wrigley’s like a new home and it’s a magical place, it really is. As we sit here looking out at this portrait, there’s none better in all of sports. It’s even more of a neighborhood park than Fenway is because people do live all around this park.”

Media pundits say a Cubs win would ensure Theo Epstein entry to Cooperstown.Stan Grossfeld/Globe Staff

The history in both cities is similar. Epstein recalls that when the two cursed franchises almost met in 2003, a connection was made.

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“I remember watching Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS in a hotel room in New York, where we had flown after losing Game 5 to the Yankees at Fenway,’’ he recalls. “When the Cubs blew the three-run lead in the eighth inning — and went on to lose the game and then the series — I remember feeling really sad for them. It was such a devastating outcome and their fans on TV were so heartbroken. Little did I know an eerily similar fate was awaiting us two days later in Yankee Stadium at the hands of Aaron Boone. I felt a real kinship between the Cubs and Sox from that moment on, and it’s something I think back on often, especially now as we both begin postseason journeys.”

The Cubs went 97-65 last year and beat the hated Cardinals before getting swept by the Mets in the NLCS. Epstein hopes experience will pay dividends for his young team.

“It was like this magical little ride in a real time of innocence. It was so unexpected’’ he says.

Last offseason, Epstein signed free agents John Lackey, Jason Heyward, and Ben Zobrist, and the Cubs became favorites to win it all. Similar to the offseason of 2003-04, when the Sox acquired Curt Schilling and Keith Foulke.

“There was a big target on our backs when we came into spring training,’’ Epstein says of his Cubs. “So in that way it does remind me of ’04. But in the postseason, anything can happen. You might be three-and-out or you might go on a magic carpet ride that ends in a parade. You have to be prepared for everything. But there’s no team I’d rather go into the postseason with.”

Media pundits say a Cubs win would ensure Epstein entry to Cooperstown.

“There’s nothing sadder than someone who lives their life thinking about legacy,’’ he insists. “If you spend your life thinking about it or manufacturing it or manicuring it, then you haven’t really lived.”

Master builder

Theo Epstein says this year’s Cubs remind him of the 2004 Red Sox. Stan Grossfeld/Globe Staff/Boston Globe

As for rebuilding the Cubs, Epstein says, “The cool thing about coming here was we had a mandate to start over. We looked at every possible avenue to find talent. If we could buy low on a couple of pitchers, build them back up, then trade them for young players. We had such a big talent deficit.’’

Epstein traded Ryan Dempster at the deadline in 2012 for young stud Kyle Hendricks. In December 2014, he signed ace Jon Lester, slugging down Jagermeister to seal the deal.

“That wasn’t my idea but you do what you have to do to sign a good player,” Epstein says with a shrug.

He acquired David Ross to catch Lester and tutor the kids. He signed Lackey away from the rival Cardinals and he lost some fans by trading for lights-out closer Aroldis Chapman, who served a suspension for a domestic violence incident.

In January 2012, the Cubs traded for current MVP candidate Anthony Rizzo, who had hit just .141 with San Diego. Epstein downplays this, too.

“Well, we had an advantage,’’ he says. “We drafted him when he was 17 out of high school. We followed him through his cancer diagnosis and treatment and triumph. I got to know his family real well. That was an easy one.”

Jake Arrieta, the 2015 Cy Young Award winner, says it’s no accident that Epstein knows how to build a winner.

“He’s almost got a sixth sense about him,” says Arrieta. “He’s got a tremendous knack for not only spotting talent but projecting talent and understanding how to develop certain guys that have the potential to be very, very, good players.”

Epstein says this year’s Cubs remind him of the 2004 Red Sox. “It’s got a lot of the same emotions,” he says.

He says the talk of the curse is something they live with. “You can’t help but hear about it,” Epstein says. “Even the young guys have been exposed to it.”

But Epstein knows how to beat a curse. He’ll never have to buy a beer in Boston.

“I miss Boston and look forward to getting back there someday,” he says.

It’s a long way from Brookline to the Heartland for Theo Epstein.Stan Grossfeld/Globe Staff

Stan Grossfeld can be reached at grossfeld@globe.com.