Superagent Lands on His Feet
Despite A-Rod contract debacle, agent Scott Boras lives to see another deal.
Nov. 20, 2007 — -- When Scott Boras contemplates the definitive week from hell, it goes something like this:
He checks the daily mail at his Newport Beach, Calif., office and finds a letter from his meal ticket, Alex Rodriguez, who informs him his services are no longer required. A few frantic phone calls later Boras discovers that his longtime nemesis, Jeff Moorad, has just left the Arizona Diamondbacks' front office to rejoin the agent fraternity, and is in the process of negotiating a 10-year, $350 million deal for A-Rod with the Yankees.
The next day, the toilet at chez Boras overflows, the car won't start, Braves first baseman Mark Teixeira calls and says he's having second thoughts about their relationship, and union leader Donald Fehr tells The Associated Press that upon further review, a salary cap might not be such a bad idea after all.
In contrast to the aforementioned nightmare, Boras' current reality is less a death blow than an embarrassment -- the agent's equivalent of a fly ball bouncing off Jose Canseco's head and over the fence for a home run.
To review, Boras made some serious missteps in the biggest negotiation of his career and received such a massive dose of vilification that he went underground for several days. And just when you wondered whether he had suffered any permanent damage, long-time client Kenny Rogers put out an all-points bulletin that he had just fired Boras and would now negotiate directly with the Detroit Tigers.
That said, Boras will survive. He'll soon receive a commission of $14 million or so for A-Rod's deal with the Yankees, and he didn't even have to pay Kinko's to print and collate a 100-page "homage to Alex" binder. It's not as if poor Scott is walking out of the casino in a barrel. If this is what it means to be a loser, we should all be so fortunate.
As Rodriguez's contract talks with the Yankees speed toward a mutually satisfactory conclusion, here's what we know: The two sides have an outline in place for a 10-year, $275 million deal, with the potential for lots of incentives as A-Rod approaches Barry Bonds' career home run record down the road.
We know that A-Rod, after seeking guidance from investment icon Warren Buffett, got the ball rolling by contacting the Yankees directly. The Steinbrenners, who wanted no part of Boras, are now dealing with him because baseball's labor contract decrees they do so. And for all his skills, Rodriguez is not particularly adept at negotiating incentives, perks and other creative flourishes in big-ticket contracts.
But if you know anything at all about Scott Boras, you know how much it killed him to be excluded from the process, even temporarily. Say what you will about the man, but he prepares for contract negotiations with the fervor of an Olympic athlete. And this time around, he missed the 100-meter final because he forgot to set his alarm clock.
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