Levine: Cubs' Joe Maddon, Theo Epstein To Become 'Dead Heads' This Weekend
By Bruce Levine--
CHICAGO (CBS) -- In a supercharged weekend of events in Chicago, Cubs manager Joe Maddon and president of baseball operations Theo Epstein won't let business get in the way of some extra fun beyond the ball club.
Both will attend the farewell performances of the band once known as the Grateful Dead.
The band -- minus super rock icon Jerry Garcia, who died in 1995 -- will perform three sold-out shows at Soldier Field this weekend. This will end their live performance run as one of the most influential musical acts in the past six decades.
Maddon and Epstein are huge rock-and-roll fans who use the music as a perfect sedative to the ups and downs of a baseball season. Maddon will attend Friday's concert.
"I will go there and don't know how it will play out yet," Maddon said. "I have never been in that ballpark and have no idea where my seats are. I am just going to enjoy it."
The eclectic Cubs dugout boss admits this wasn't a bucket-list item so much as a nice event to attend and tell people about.
"I am latent Dead Head," Maddon confessed, meaning he's late to the party. "I have been playing them on my 1967 (Ford) Galaxy radio the last couple of years."
Maddon says his younger years were more skewed toward The Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen, among others.
"To hear the Allman brothers back in the day would have been pretty solid," Maddon said. "That is one I missed live when they just began. Of course, Pavarotti in Italy would have been fabulous."
Epstein plans to attend Sunday's Grateful Dead concert.
Bruce Levine covers the Cubs and White Sox for 670 The Score and CBSChicago.com. Follow him on Twitter @MLBBruceLevine.
