In the Batter's Box With the Agent to the Stars

Feb. 23, 2007— -- In order for baseball to make headlines in the off season, it usually requires a scandal or, in some cases, scandalous amounts of money.

It was the latter case in San Francisco, when the Giants announced they would make Barry Zito the highest-paid pitcher in history at a pay rate of nearly $500,000 per game.

In another watershed moment in Boston, the Red Sox signed Daisuke Matsuzaka. Though he's never thrown a Major League pitch, the team paid his Japanese team $51 million just to talk to him, and another $52 million to sign him.

These two, along with Alex Rodriguez, Carlos Beltran, Greg Maddux, Kenny Rogers, Adrian Beltre and 55 other elite Major Leaguers share something besides a tax bracket. All are clients of agent Scott Boras. In the picture to the left, he's the one in a really nice suit, with the really big smile.

When asked if he'd be just as successful selling cars, he responded, "I'm not a salesman, no."

He bristles at the comparison, insisting he is purely a baseball attorney. Even the word "agent," and all its Hollywood imagery, stemming from the hit film "Jerry Maguire," makes him uncomfortable.

"The Most Hated Man in Baseball"

But some baseball writers attach more caustic labels to Boras, including "pimp" and "shill," or "The Most Hated Man in Baseball." To many, he is the devil on the shoulder of superstars, convincing them to abandon their loyal fans and sell their souls to the highest bidder.

Boras says, unlike his clients, he's rarely cheered.

"I always tell them [the fans], look, it's the player's decision. We really work for them. I'm not sure they ever believe that because I don't think they choose to blame the players. They choose to blame me, and that's fine."

All Boras, the son of a farmer, ever wanted to do was play baseball. But he blew out his knee in the Minors, went to law school and spent a couple of years defending drug companies.

After helping a former teammate land a decent contract, he changed paths and changed the game. With audacious demands and relentless negotiation, he is a big reason player salaries have gone up more than tenfold in 20 years. His cut has made him a very wealthy man.

When asked if he would trade his success for a decent career as a Major Leaguer himself, he responded, "As long as my family was OK and I knew that they were going to be taken care of, my children and wife, that would be a very easy decision for me ... of course."

Some believe he is driven by revenge for a game that never let him play; but Boras denies it, and points to his days in the minors as a lesson in inequality.

"I saw 40 players get released in one day when I was playing professional baseball. I'll never forget it," says Boras.

That memory is motivation to get all the players their fair share of baseball's $6 billion a year business. And it takes almost all his time. He admits seeing his players more than his family, attending a game every night.

He employs a roster of scouts, trainers, marketing gurus and sports psychologists.

"We don't socialize a particularly great deal with our clients. We're there to give them information because we know their careers are short," says Boras.

Boras' Secret Weapon

Beyond his office waterfall, past the wall of gold gloves, and down in the basement lies his secret weapon: a room full of computers and video recorders holding every statistic, of every game, ever.

The most glorious stats and projections are bound into a fancy brochure and sent to teams. Boras says they will put in 500 man hours of preparation before the next negotiation. Then comes the bidding, with Boras playing one team off the other to drive up the price. The first time he tried this, the Texas Rangers gave star shortstop Alex Rodriguez more than a quarter billion dollars. Six years later, it remains the richest contract in sports history.

Boras says it's not always all about the money.

He said, "The perception obviously is that our clients take the highest contract. The reality of it is, close to 70 percent of the time, the players take less than the greatest offer."

Only the players and Boras know for sure. It is still widely believed that Boras duped the Rangers into overpaying Rodriguez by $100 million.

Buster Olney, a senior writer for ESPN, says, "He will come out and say, 'Well, I've talked to four different teams and they've given me these huge offers.' And teams can identify three, but then there's always that mystery team. A lot of executives feel like he does not bargain in good faith. That he's not always telling them the truth."

In response, Boras says, "When the press calls and says, for Alex Rodriquez, were there any other bidders? And I say I don't disclose that, the press immediately writes there was no one near what the club that signed him paid. And the point I would say to them is that's something you'll never know."

We searched far and wide for a general manager who would comment on Scott Boras, and after a lot of voice mails and unreturned phone calls we had one taker.

Omar Minaya, general manager of the New York Mets had this to say about Boras:

"The Tough Negotiator"

"If I want to build a good team, I got to have good players. He has good players. Now I'm forced to negotiate. Is he a tough negotiator? Yes, he is. Is that against the rules? No. There are some general managers that will tell me they have a policy that they will not trade for, or at least, they will not sign free agents or sign amateur free agents that are represented by Scott Boras."

In contrast, Boras says he's signed a player with every Major League team in the last two years. Still, his reputation echoes all the way to the amateur diamonds. Freddy Freeman is one of the best prospects in Southern California. Even though teams are beating down his door, Freeman and his father know that hiring baseball's most powerful agent would be a calculated risk.

Freeman says, "If you go with Boras you won't get drafted. That's the perception, because they know Scott Boras will get his players a lot of money, and I think scouting directors and teams shy away from those players who have Scott Boras."

Freeman's father added, "He has changed the industry. If it wasn't for him, I think these first round picks would still be getting $100,000 instead of $300,000 and a half-million dollars."

Older players have also enjoyed the spoils. Keith Hernandez was damaged goods at the end of his career in 1990, but Boras got him $3 million for one injury-plagued season in Cleveland.

Hernandez says, "With the things that he's done, profoundly affecting the game, you can make the argument that maybe he can be in the Hall of Fame. Some people may laugh at me. I'm just throwing it out there."

Ultimately, Boras says, the only opinions that matter come from the players.

"I had a labor law professor who worked with me when I was young in this business, and he said, 'I want to tell you something. After watching this medium, if you're really, really good at your job, 90 percent of what's said about you will be negative. So be prepared for that.'"

And that's all Boras keeps trying to do, be good at his job.