Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Piazza joined the lineup of legends in the Baseball Hall of Fame on Sunday. Seeing Griffey, graced with the cognomen “The Kid’’ during his career, exhibiting subtle signs of aging was jarring. It was like seeing former Red Sox wunderkind general manager Theo Eps­tein sprouting gray hair as he tries to accomplish baseball’s version of Immaculate Conception, delivering the Cubs’ first World Series championship since 1908.

If Epstein, the Cubs’ president of baseball operations, provides salvation and the championship of a lifetime to a second cursed fan base he can make reservations to join Griffey in Cooperstown, N.Y. The same man constructing the teams that ended the Red Sox’ 86-year championship drought in 2004 and more than a century of Cubs’ futility deserves baseball immortality.

The sense is that this is the year for the Cubs. Theo has reinvented the Lovable Losers into formidable contenders, arming them with one of baseball’s most talented rosters.

The Cubs have spent all but one day this season in first place, and Epstein addressed Chicago’s fatal flaw — a rickety bullpen — by leveraging his vaunted farm system Monday to deal for Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman.

Who better to end a 108-year wait for a championship than a guy whose rushes it to the plate at 105 miles per hour?

(Chapman does not come to Wrigleyville without controversy. He was suspended by Major League Baseball for the first 29 games of this season because of his involvement in a domestic violence incident.)

If the 42-year-old Epstein can take the Cubs off their merry-go-round of misery and to the World Series winner’s circle, he could go down as the greatest GM of the modern baseball era, which commenced with the advent of free agency in 1975. The only modern GM to be inducted into the Hall of Fame is Pat Gillick in 2011. Gillick took four franchises to the postseason and won three World Series with two teams (Toronto Blue Jays and Philadelphia Phillies).

Theo would be both a trailblazer — the archetype for the Ivy League analytical generation of GMs that followed him — and a curse-breaker.

Red Sox fans know that Epstein won’t hesitate to make a daring in-season deal if it can be the difference in ending a haunting championship drought and decades of self-fulfilling failures.

A warning to the good folks of Chicago: Epstein’s track record trading for late-inning relievers in-season is a little spotty. He traded for Byung-Hyun Kim, Scott Williamson, Scott Sauerbeck, and Eric Gagne to boost the bullpens of contending Boston teams. All but Kim posted ERAs over 6.00 the season they were acquired. The Billy Wagner pickup in 2009 worked out well until the playoffs.

We’re a bit wrapped up in our own baseball redemption story here in the Hub. Epstein’s office is 987 miles away from 4 Yawkey Way, but his fingerprints are all over the current Sox. Xander Bogaerts, Mookie Betts, and Jackie Bradley Jr. all go under Theo’s ledger.

Between the Cubs and the Red Sox, 11 of the players in this year’s All-Star Game were acquired by Epstein.

I’m curious if Red Sox fans are rooting for or against Theo in the National League.

Epstein grew up in Brookline, a half-mile from Fenway Park. He second-guessed Sox managers and internalized the pain of championship close calls like us. He considers himself a Bostonian for life.

There was a time when Epstein rivaled Tom Brady as the Boston sports celebrity whose mundane actions constituted grist for the gossip pages.

There was a feeling that Epstein abandoned ship when he went to Chicago following the Sox’ ignominious end in 2011. But Epstein was intrigued by the challenge of the Cubs and by the autonomy he would be given to build a team without a business-side Green Monster to feed.

The Cubs made the playoffs last year. But, truthfully, this was the year Epstein and the brain trust that followed him from Boston — Cubs GM Jed Hoyer and senior vice president of player development and amateur scouting Jason McLeod — targeted for contention from Day 1.

The Fenway Faithful harbor their own October dreams. However, if there is any fan base that can relate to Cubbies fans it should be Red Sox fans. Cubs fans have a more sanguine sensibility about their suffering, but there is a natural kinship.

“I can only get away with saying this because I consider myself a Bostonian and always will. There is probably a little bit more inherent skepticism in Boston and Massachusetts, generally,’’ Epstein told me last year. “I think it’s the Puritanical roots.

“Especially before ’04, it felt like the sky was falling or we’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. You could have a healthy lead, but in the seventh inning a reliever came on and walked the leadoff batter. You felt that buzz in the ballpark, like, ‘Here we go again.’ That was organic. I was one of those kids growing up.

“Here it’s a little different Midwestern sensibility. They’re looking for everything to be OK. They’re looking to have a good time. We haven’t won in 107 years, but Wrigley is a cool place to watch a game. Even if we’re in fifth place, if a guy makes a nice hustle play they’re cheering him like we just won the World Series.

“I think it’s just a slightly different outlook, both true to the sensibility of the region, not one better or worse than the other. But definitely different.’’

I’ll never forget being at Buckingham Palace in March 2004 and running into a couple of Cubs fans. We commiserated over the 2003 playoffs, Bartman, and Aaron Boone.

I thought of those Cubs fans when the Red Sox won in ’04.

Now, Theo is their man on a mission, one that could pave his path to Cooperstown.

Christopher L. Gasper is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at cgasper@globe.com.