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Cubs' Theo Epstein: 'This Is What We Live For'

(CBS) The day after his Cubs set an MLB record with six homers in a postseason game in an 8-6 win against the Cardinals in Game 3 of the NLDS, president of baseball operations Theo Epstein was still in awe.

"We all had this vision in our head of young players slugging our way through October," Epstein said in an interview on the Spiegel and Goff Show on Tuesday. "We didn't think it would happen this quickly. And let's be clear: We haven't reached our goal at all. We have a lot of work to do to get past this series, let alone the ultimate prize.

"But nights like last night, when we're scouting players and you kind of lineups out on cocktail napkins late at night at the bar, you get excited about it and then it gets on the whiteboard in the board room and then the first time together in spring training we're excited about it -- now they're doing it in October. It's incredible to see. This is what we live for."

In a wild Monday night at Wrigley Field, the Cubs got homers from the top six hitters in their lineup: Dexter Fowler, Jorge Soler, Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, Starlin Castro and Kyle Schwarber. It was a payoff for and the vision of the long rebuild that Epstein and general manager Jed Hoyer set out on when they came to Chicago in October 2011.

And it's that long process that made Monday even sweeter.

"It's really important to believe before you see," Epstein said. "You know, we had to have belief in what we were doing before we could see it play it. And that's not just with the big league team. That's with the organization. We were starting essentially from the bottom, and we had a lofty goal of what we wanted to build. You can't go in to that needing instant gratification. You can't go in to that even needing periodic affirmation. You need to go in trusting yourself and trusting the organization, trusting your brother that you work with.

"It's all about people and processes. This organization is really, really healthy right now because of the people we brought in -- the character of the people, the work ethic, the selflessness, the camaraderie."

Listen to Epstein's full interview with Spiegel and Goff below.

Theo Epstein on the Spiegel & Goff Show

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