Good morning!

Here are several go-to links to make your Monday a bit more bearable:

As the Red Sox’ popularity grew with World Series titles in 2004 and 2007, so did the pressure to generate more revenue and advance the brand. It wasn’t just ownership, or just marketing, or just the limited partners, but a culture permeating the business as a whole.
“There are always going to be pressures and tensions, and it was a real palpable thing that we talked about, where there was a natural tendency to look at the successes and the spikes that came with the World Series championships and assume that’s the new baseline,” Epstein said.
“How do we maintain this and be true to ourselves? How do we fight the natural tendency and desire, especially in some of the revenue-generating parts of any business, to be bigger and do more?
“How do we fight the natural tendency that comes after winning to not be arrogant as an organization,” he said. “There was a danger of the tone of the organization becoming too self-important, like, ‘Red Sox Nation is this.’ You can’t even say that sentence without risking sounding overly self-important.”
And of course, he wishes his departure came without the whirlwind of negativity that took down pretty much everyone associated with last year’s team, and continues to plague this year’s edition.
“I can certainly cling too much to things that aren’t going well,” he admitted when discussing his personality. “I am a New Englander, after all.”

That’s it. Have a walk-off week!