Evil and Boras
Posted: May 12th, 2009 | Filed under: Media | 98 Comments »
I am staying out of the Selena Roberts-Alex Rodriguez thing because, well, I just think I should. Selena is a friend of mine, I have a lot of admiration for her, and I don’t think I can be fair about the whole thing. And, anyway, I don’t think there is a lack of discussion out there about the subject.
But, I do want to mention one part of her A-Rod book that actually has very little to do with A-Rod … not because I like it or dislike it, agree with it or disagree with it, because, I think, it gets close to a subject I am fascinated by: That is, how impossible it really is to be objective in this nutty world of ours. This is a topic we talked about at some length Monday at Fort Leavenworth as I, once again, fulfilled my preposterous role as an official United States military consultant. This was, I believe, the fifth time I have worked as a military consultant at the University of Foreign Military Studies. I talk baseball, they call it military theory, it never stops baffling me. And the strangest part of all is that they keep wanting me back, which tells me:
1. I am not embarrassing myself as much as I think I am.
or
2. I am embarrassing myself as much as I think I am … but they’re entertained by it.
In any case, one of our points of discussion was how difficult it is to remove as much of yourself and your biases from analysis and observation. This is hard to do in any walk of life … I would imagine it is especially hard in the military since, as Vizzini said, death is on the line. The fact that my baseball study on, say, Dan Quisenberry and Bruce Sutter might be unintentionally biased because I liked Quiz so much is probably not quite as critical as a soldier making a misjudgment in Afghanistan.
But the larger point is that we do let our biases build up, and often in ways that simply elude us. I ran across this section in Selena’s book and could not help but think about this: The section was mostly about agent Scott Boras. I think most people have an instant reaction to Boras. The reactions no doubt differ, but I suspect most are pretty negative. If you want an easy applause line, rip Boras, or rip Bonds, or rip Selig, or rip Clemens. You probably won’t get much angry email.
My own general view of Boras is that he is good at what he does, he is a cold-hearted baseball killer, he tends to measure himself by the size of his client’s wallets, and he will push the boundaries to get his people the best deal. Good for the game? Probably not, but I don’t think that means much. Are owners good for the game? I don’t think it’s Boras’ job to be good for the game. It’s his job to get his players more money and security than they could get on their own. That’s what players who sign with him expect. And he does seem to deliver often*.
*Though not always. I’ve written before about the Royals offering a pretty large multi-year deal to shortstop Rey Sanchez, something like three million bucks per year. Sanchez — undoubtedly on the advice of his agent, Scott Boras — turned down the deal. Sanchez ended up signing for 700K the next year, he played for five different teams in the four-plus years after he left KC, and last time I saw him he was working out on a field in Puerto Rico, fielding ground balls while wearing Royals shorts. He told me: “If you see the Royals guys, tell them I want to come back.”
Anyway, in this section, the familiar theme is about how Boras seemed to use a 17-year-old Alex Rodriguez against the Seattle Mariners after A-Rod was drafted No. 1 overall in the draft. The theme is that Boras simply wanted to get A-Rod a record-breaking contract, largely for the glory of Scott Boras. I would guess that’s probably right. Right away, Boras used a move that has become a standard operating procedure — he insisted that “no one from the Mariners was to contact Alex personally. Ever. For any reason.”
OK, well, as you might remember, there was some serious hostility during negotiations. Here is a section from the book that more or less sums things up: “Boras liked to turn his clients against a team even if it meant that he had to cook up the illusion of hostility. ‘Scott wanted to be the guy on the white horse,’ Jongewaard says. Boras accused the Mariners of stalking Alex and harassing the teen everywhere he went. ‘It wasn’t true,’ (Seattle Mariners head of scouting and development Roger) Jongewaard adds. ‘But Scott wanted Alex and his family to think that. It was very, very aggressive on Scott’s part.’”
Now, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with this paragraph. I think it’s very clear that Boras DOES like to turn his clients against the team, and there seems no doubt that he is not above cooking up the illusion of hostility. We have a couple of quotes from Roger Jongewaard which add context and the Mariners point of view. And we have a true history: Boras did accuse the Mariners of stalking A-Rod.
So what’s the problem here? Why do I think that this paragraph comes from point of view?
Because I want to point you a section just a few paragraphs earlier. The lead-in was about Boras’ rule of keeping the Mariners away from his client.
“Alex and his family took these rules of separation seriously. The Mariners called Alex’s home 50 to 60 times in the first five days after the draft but not one call was returned. A week later, Jongewaard and team representatives from the Mariners flew to Miami and knocked on Alex’s front door. They were not greeted warmly, but they were allowed to step inside, where they presented their opening offer: $1 million over three years. They said that was about $20,000 more than what the college All-American Jeffrey Hammonds had signed for a year earlier as the fourth pick of Baltimore.”
You are no doubt a few steps ahead of me already. What do we have here?
1. “The Mariners called Alex’s home 50 or 60 times in the first five days after the draft but not one call was returned.” Selena’s point seems to be that A-Rod did not return the calls … but, I see a team calling a 17-year-old kid FIFTY OR SIXTY TIMES and, yeah, you know what? That does sound like stalking a little bit, no?
2. “The Mariners flew to Miami and knocked on Alex’s door. They were not greeted warmly.” Again, Selena’s point seems to be that the A-Rod family was cold toward the team because of Boras. But I see a team basically traveling across the country, uninvited, and bursting into the A-Rod home to make an offer with the agent not around. I’m not saying they didn’t have the right to do that. I’m saying … sounds a bit more like stalking.
3. “They said that was about $20,000 more than what the college All-American Jeffrey Hammonds had signed for a year earlier as the fourth pick of Baltimore.” I have little doubt that’s what they said. However, Alex Rodriguez was not the fourth pick of the 1993 draft. Wayne Gomes of Old Dominion was the fourth pick.
No, A-Rod was the first pick — and by a wide, wide margin. He was almost universally considered the best prospect to come out in the draft since Ken Griffey Jr. I’m not saying the A-Rod deal the Mariners offered was fundamentally unfair or out of line for the time … I’m just saying that the fact it was 20 grand more than Jeffrey Hammonds the year before does not especially impress me, and it seems like the sort of trick that a baseball team would use on an an unsuspecting and inexperienced baseball family. Two years earlier, Brien Taylor was the first pick in the draft, and he got $1.55 million. So you could argue, persuasively I think, that the Mariners were indeed trying to low-ball A-Rod by going around his agent and going after his mother.
I think this is a good example because, yeah, nobody is likely to deny that Boras plays hardball. Boras himself would not deny it. I suspect that in a book as controversial as this A-Rod book, few even noticed this passage. But to me, it gets at the heart of something most of us do … I definitely do it too. It seems like we cannot help but start with a certain point of view and then, often involuntarily and unwittingly, look at the facts through that prism.
An example: I remember the second Masters I covered, it came down to the final day … and Bernhard Langer had a three-shot lead on Chip Beck on the par-5 15th hole. Beck hit his drive into the fairway and was 236 yards shy of the hole. Everyone in the place — and I mean EVERYONE — expected, assumed, demanded that Beck go for the pin. An eagle could shake up the tournament. Beck had never won a major championship, and this was his moment, this was his time, this was how he would be remembered in the golfing community*.
*Though Beck also shot a 59 in a tournament round, so golf nuts would remember that too.
Beck, instead, laid up. He did not even try for the green or the eagle and he ended up finishing an uninspiring second. He got ripped for his decision, absolutely ripped, and even now when someone does not boldly go for victory, sportswriters will often compare him or her to Chip Beck.
It is Beck’s burden, and when looking at it through the prism that so many of us see sports (second place is just first place among losers; you have to be aggressive when your moment comes — coffee is for closers; you cannot settle for defeat when there’s still a chance for victory), then, yes, Chip Beck is the villain of the story. And that’s how most people wrote it. That is sort of how I wrote it.*
*“Sort of” because I did not write that the next day … I wrote something about Langer’s crazy putting style, I believe. Sigh. I did write Beck a couple of days after the Masters was over, when I realized that I had missed the story. Well, hey, I was 26 years old.
But was Beck’s Wreck the only angle? A year later, I talked at length with Chip Beck and he explained to me (quite persuasively) that he could not hit a 236-yard drive with the way the ball was lying. He said he simply did not have that shot in his bag. He said that he had won four golf tournaments playing a certain way, and that he understood better than anyone his strengths and limitations. He said that Langer had a three-shot lead on him, and so while, yes, an eagle might change the complexion of the tournament, he had almost no shot at an eagle and, anyway, it would not have been decisive. His best hope, he felt, was to play for a birdie, try to birdie two holes coming in and hope that Langer made a mistake or two. I don’t play golf, but that doesn’t sound outrageously wrong to me. We are conditioned to believe in the slight hope of a Hail Mary, but desperation passes and prayer don’t often lead to victory.
My point: The Chip Beck story as almost everyone wrote it was not wrong, necessarily. But it was not necessarily right either. It was point of view. One more example: You might remember that in 1983, at the Orange Bowl, Nebraska scored a late touchdown to pull within one point of Miami. Coach Tom Osborne decided to go for two. That Nebraska team was widely viewed, even at the moment, as potentially the greatest in the history of college football. There was a legacy to be won, and a tie would not win it. Nebraska went for the victory. The two-point conversion failed. And Miami won the national championship.
The story the next day was about Osborne’s courage … it was sort of the opposite of a Chip Beck moment. From what I recall, the praise of Osborne going for two was almost universal. As a high school kid then, I remember it being entirely universal … I don’t think I ever heard a single person suggest that Osborne made the wrong call.
Then, years and years later, I read a column from the wonderful Kansas City Star columnist Joe McGuff. The column did not — DID NOT — say that Osborne made the wrong call. No. But what it said was that Osborne did not make the COURAGEOUS call. Joe wrote that Osborne was likely to get praise about how much sports courage it took to forgo the tie, go for the victory, grab history by the horns. And as such, it didn’t take any courage at all.
Joe wrote that the truly courageous thing — courageous, as in, “not being deterred” — would have been to take the tie, give his players the national championship they so certainly deserved, take the fall throughout history as the guy who settled for the tie so that he could give his players a championship.
Again, Joe did not say that Osborne should have taken the tie. I’m pretty sure Joe thought going for two was the right call. He was simply saying that it would have taken a lot more guts to take the tie than it was to go for the victory. And after thinking about it a lot, I tend to agree. If we want to see Scott Boras as the bad guy, if we want to see Chip Beck as the coward, if we want to see Tom Osborne as the heroic figure, then we can make the evidence fit our image. More to the point, it’s hard to view the evidence any other way. We see the world the way we see the world.
Loading ...
You say it’s not Scott Boras’s job to be good for the game. But does that absolve him of any responsibility? Baseball money is pretty much zero-sum; the more he gets Jason Varitek, the more Sox fans are going to have to pay if they want to see a game. There’s a nice backlash going against the top five percent of earners in this country right now. Baseball stars are in that group. I’m not advocating straight-up socialism, but why does Boras’s job have to be to get his clients the most money possible? Why can’t it be to get them plenty of money without breaking the bank? Kevin Youkilis and Dustin Pedroia don’t seem to be shopping at the Salvation Army.
I’m a big Nebraska fan, and I’ve thought about that a lot. I basically agree, it’s hard to consider a decision “courageous” when everyone will praise you for it regardless of the outcome. The one counterpoint I would offer, though, is that from 1973 to 1994 Osborne was the guy who couldn’t win the big one…a nice guy but not tough enough to win a national championship. It’s hard to believe, but he was probably close to being fired or leaving on his own several times. Kicking the extra point there would have changed all that, and he wouldn’t have heard complaining 365 days a year about how he had never won a national title. Of course, it would have spawned a whole new round of complaints about how he backed into it. But I think there had to be a real temptation to kick the extra point and take the national championship.
The other thing I’ve heard him say, is that he didn’t think they would have been voted national champions if they went for the tie. That surely isn’t right, and I’m not sure I believe him, but if he really thought that than it changes the thinking completely.
Joe, I understand it can be difficult to criticize a friend and colleague for a myriad of reasons. So please don’t take this the wrong way, but I feel you have an obligation, if you see an injustice, to discuss it with your readers. We respect your opinion and look to you as the voice of reason in an industry that is in dire straits right now.
To be perfectly frank, I think your stance “I am staying out of the Selena Roberts-Alex Rodriguez thing because, well, I just think I should. Selena is a friend of mine, I have a lot of admiration for her, and I don’t think I can be fair about the whole thing” is the major problem with journalism today. You get paid to be objective (as a journalist), not to be friends with Selena Roberts. If you have problems with her work (anonymous sources, biases, etc.) then please speak up. If Ms. Roberts cannot handle professional criticism, and/or has produced faulty and libelous material, is that someone you should really admire?
I am of the opinion that she has exhibited a lack of journalistic integrity and cannot be trusted at face value. However, I am willing to listen to the other side of the argument. If you support her for reasons other than ‘well she is a friend’ and ‘I see her in the halls of SI a lot’ speak up. If not, you are merely lying to yourself by keeping quiet.
Thanks for listening.
It’s my movie, I see the world as I will and often reject your vision of the world, version of my movie, or am I a character in yours. I am sure you play me differently than I would. “We see the world the way we see the world” and when it doesn’t suit me, I substitute a world of my own. I don’t believe anyone is right about what they see anymore than I believe I am right, just my vision sits with me. So many different views it is amazing we actually all live on the same planet. Our view comes from where we stand, and sometimes where we think we stand, though others may see us in a different place… b l a h blah b l a h
leave the posts to Joe
I don’t know Chip Beck nor do I remember the occasion that Joe refers to at the Masters. However, I back Beck to the nth degree on this one. He and he alone (well, maybe his caddie too) knew what he was capable of given the position of his ball and the distance to the green. If a guy is playing in the Masters and is in 2nd place I think he must know what he is doing! Sportswriters can be so damn sure about anything and everything but on most occasions they haven’t a clue about every little detail that an athlete contemplates as he/she performs.
Yes, I as a fan am guilty of it too when I scream, “What was he thinking?!” after some less than satisfying moment during a sporting match of any kind. When I calm down and truly think about the circumstances it often occurs to me that I am the foolish one to think that I knew better than the highly trained athlete.
My problem with Scott Boras has always been that he seems to get his clients top dollar — but to do so, puts them in a situation where failure is likely because he doesn’t seek out the best spot for the client.
He got A-Rod top dollar with the Rangers, but the Rangers then couldn’t afford anyone to pitch for their team, so A-Rod spent several years playing for a bottom feeder and getting much of the blame for the team’s poor performance.
Tom Glavin went from a great situation in Atlanta to one that never really panned out for him in New York.
Rey Sanchez is a perfect example — and a sad one. Rey Sanchez had a couple really great years in Kansas City and it took us until mid-year last year to find someone who could actually play the position and not look completely outmatched at the plate.
It seems like there have been other examples….players who get a lot of money but are in a rotten situation. I just never felt like that was in the overall best interests of the client — but I’m also somoene who would feel pretty lucky if I made the league minimum.
I always thought it was the job of the agent to prevent hostility between the player and the club. When you negotiate head-to-head, the club is going to say things that hurt the player’s feelings. They don’t mean it that way, they just are pointing out the player doesn’t deserve the money requested due to weaknesses in his game.
When the team says that to an agent, the agent shouldn’t take it personally. If the GM screams and hollers about the amount of money requested, the agent goes back to the player and says, “It was a tough negotiating day”, not, “The team doesn’t like the way you hit.” The agent should be absorbing all the negativity that happens in negotiations so that when the player signs, he feels like he’s playing for a team that wants him.
When Boras is representing Varitek, his job is to get the best contract he can get for Varitek. If Varitek doesn’t want Boras to get the most money he can, then he can tell Boras no. Or he can fire Boras as an agent and sign the contract himself. Varitek is a big boy. If he doesn’t want an agent who tries to extract every last penny, then he wouldn’t have hired Boras.
Well, Joe’s statement that “we can make the evidence fit our image. More to the point, it’s hard to view the evidence any other way. We see the world the way we see the world” is about as good of a summary of Roberts’ book as any other. Except for the word “evidence,” of course.
Taking the tie as being more courageous reminds me of a story in Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried.” It’s a story about O’Brien being drafted and the how it would have been more courageous for him to flee to Canada rather than go to Vietnam (which he chose). If he dodged the draft he would have to answer to himself and to others, what he did. He was too scared to be scared. I’m not explaining it well. You all should read it.
“is the major problem with journalism today. You get paid to be objective (as a journalist), not to be friends with Selena Roberts”
Is that true? Not to quibble, but Joe’s a columnist, and is presumably paid by the Star to offer opinions, not simply report facts.
That’s not to say that some level of objectivity isn’t important, even for columnists — an opinion is pretty worthless if there isn’t some semblance of objectivity — but I don’t think columnists are (or should be) held to the same level of objectivity as reporters.
Joe
When you start out by saying Selena is a friend and you’re not going to get into it, you basically tell us you are not in agreement with what she did or else you would have supported her publicly. Agenda is what makes readers not trust the media and this is a perfect example of why. Whether the author was a friend or not should not have an influence on how ou do your job.
Mike
How much Varitek makes has little influence on ticket prices. Ticket prices are market driven. The decision is if you prefer the owners to get richer or the players to get richer because either way, supply and demand is going to determine ticket prices and the money isn’t staying in the fans pocket.
The people who get screwed over by Boras are the ones you never hear about. The prospects who go to college to try to get a bigger signing bonus and get hurt or flame out. The last two 1st round picks for the Royals were holding out with Boras and eventually told Boras to quit playing hard ball and get the deal done. People already hate Boras and it just makes the player look bad. Hell, A-Rod negotiated his own contract in NY because Boras was screwing around.
mike- Fans don’t pay more because Jason Varitek gets a bigger contract. The Red Sox determine ticket prices that maximize their revenues. They then use those projected revenues to figure out how much they can pay Varitek (or an improvement on Varitek.) If everyone on the Red Sox was suddenly willing to play for the league minimum, the team wouldn’t reduce ticket prices if the fans were still buying.
Re: Varitek making more money means it costs more to go to a ball game.
This all-to-common belief is the one of my biggest pet peeves. There is absolutely no reasonable argument I have ever heard that could convince me that this is at all the case. The two are virtually unrelated. The owners of the Red Sox are business men. While it may be true that they have some motivations besides maximizing their profit (i.e. the glory of winning a championship, civic pride), by far the greatest motivation when they set their ticket prices is to maximize profit. That is to say that they find the intersection between supply and demand (this is the basis of economics and describes all transactions). Demand is fairly self-explanatory, it is based on a myriad of factors, of which Jason Varitek’s salary is not one. Supply is fixed (the number of seats in Fenway), and is very inelastic because the marginal cost to the Red Sox of selling one more ticket (having one more seat occupied) is effectively zero (it may be more than zero at the extreme low end, that is to say that it would cost more for the Red Sox to have 10 fans in the stadium than it would to have 0, but at practical levels the increase in cost to the Red Sox is so close to 0 that is should be disregarded). Jason Varitek’s salary plays absolutely no role in the supply side of the equation either.
The only way to argue that an agent getting a client a higher salary has a negative effect on fans is by taking the stance that the player’s higher salary prevents the team from signing him (or allows them to sign him but prevents them from signing another player) and therefore the quality of the team goes down. However, the limitation of this line of logic is that in virtually all cases (Lofton and maybe Bonds excluded) the pursuit of higher salaries is not removing talent from the major leagues so there is no argument that as a whole an agent forcing higher salaries is hurting fans of major league baseball. Finally, it is ironic that Varitek and Red Sox fans are used as an example, because if there are any teams that benefit relative to other teams from the higher salaries it is the big market teams that are able to exploit their resource advantage more the higher that salaries climb (just imagine if the major league maximum was $100k a year, would the Red Sox and Yankees still have their advantages over the Kansas City’s of the world?).
@Mike-
I strongly disagree with that sentiment. Baseball money IS a zero sum game but only in the sense that money not being made by players is going to the owners. There is absolutely no correlation between how much Player X earns and how much the team will charge for tickets. Instead, teams charge however much they think fans are willing to pay. Case in point, the Yankees payroll actually went down this year but their ticket prices have (famously) increased. Ultimately, a team is going to set ticket prices at the maximum level they think they can get away with, independent of payroll. How often do you see teams actually dropping ticket prices when they drop payroll? As far as I’m concerned, the issue is whether we, as fans, would rather see the money going to the players, who are the product we are paying to see, or the owners, who are, by and large, very wealthy businessmen. Because my preference is for the players, I have no problem with Boras doing what he can to get the maximum dollar for his clients. If his clients did not want to max out their contract, they could easily go to another agent or tell Boras that they want to go to a specific team, irrespective of the contract. That Boras is extremely good at his job seems like a backwards reason to hate him and contend that he’s ruining baseball.
The title of this post is redundant.
I have to hesitantly agree with Matt S (#3). Having already defended Selena Roberts on this blog just a few months ago, it’s weak to punt on commenting on the full book now that it’s out and you’ve read it or are reading it.
“I don’t think there is a lack of discussion out there about the subject.” Come on. There’s no lack of discussion out there about any topic on this blog or any other.
Wow.
Those quotes from her book are exactly why she’s being so criticized.
I read those quotes and had the exact same reaction you did – fifty or sixty calls in week? I’d change my number! It’s unfathomable to me that someone has such a chip on their shoulder about ARod that they’d somehow twist that around as though HE WAS TO BLAME in that situation. That’s not just illogical, it’s actually kind of sick.
* * * * *
And I agree with David Pinto about the role of an agent. That’s why players hate the arbitration process – it sucks to have your future employer talking trash about you, especially when both of you know you’re absolutely playing for them next year.
I agree with Tyler 100% and I’ll go a step further. It’s ironic baseball is used as an example, because there’s no salary cap. The other pro team sports may be able to say “well, we can’t give player A more money or else we won’t be able to get player B” and have a legit reason, their cap maximum. But baseball doesn’t have it. Any baseball owner who claims it is even more off base than other pro sports team owners. The fans should not believe the salary argument.
Tremendously insightful article. Thanks for writing it, I appreciate the fact that there are some sportswriters out there who can view things from multiple perspectives, even if they aren’t the popular ones.
This seems to be a skill that is only possessed by a minority of sportswriters, let alone the news media at large. Or perhaps nuance and truly balanced coverage has just been proven to not sell, so the skill has simply been abandoned.
Either way, please keep at it Joe!
Joe
I also would appreciate to hear your actuals thoughts on Roberts and her book. You could even spin it into one of your newspaper posts and illustrate how journalists like Roberts have basically dropped down to the level of bloggers (or below) regarding sources and credibility and the effect that has on the journalists vs. interweb blogging dynamic. Or just your thoughts on the drivel Roberts churned out in the book.
I really don’t see how Joe is obligated to discuss anything on his own blog. His site, he chooses content. We enjoy it because it’s well written/interesting*. This is not his newspaper column.
* unlike this post
re: Matts first comment. You are obviously not a socialist, particularly since your comment smacks of supporting those who control the means of production while ignoring the workers who slave in their factories. The problem with your comment regarding Varitek’s contract is that the price of Jason Variteks contract only has so much to do with your ticket to a Red Sox game. I assure you that if the Red Sox halved their payroll tomorrow that they would not be lowering ticket prices (or if they did it would be only a token amount to placate the angry fans). We see baseball players on our TVs and have this anger over the money their making but who but Albert Pujols could do what Albert Pujols does? People talk about teachers and policemen and how they’re underpaid, and to an extent this is correct, but their is a reason they are paid as they are and Albert is paid as he is. They are eminently replaceable. The owners, who make far more (and whose greed is both far more damaging to the game and more the reason why you pay so much for a ticket) deserve your anger. The players generate the revenue, and are deserving of as much of it as they can get.
Very good point Joe and I would think that if you got most reporters/journalists to look over some of their work, they would no doubt see several pieces they have written that fall victim to unintended bias.
Now if we could only get a few more writers to take a somewhat more independent look at the steroids issues instead of marching on with the crusade to “save the children”, that would be good.
My second favorite sports writer is Gregg Easterbrook, who says:
‘An awful lot of football commentary boils down to: “If you run you should have passed, and if you passed you should have run.”‘
You are a genius when you succeed and a chump when you fail, even if you do the same thing both times.
S***** ‘em. Good for Chip!
And on biases, from Hugh Hewitt: The vanity that people can divorce themselves from their bias is just that, vanity.
You gotta know you have ‘em, and try to recognize where they lie.
I was going to comment on the idea of Varitek’s salary impacting ticket prices and basic economic theory, but htat seems to have been well covered.
As for Boras, my opinion is that his only responsibility is to his clients. Now, I might not choose, if I were in a player’s shows, to hire Boras, but as one person said, Varitek si a big boy and can direct Boras or fire him or whatever. Boras offers a certain type of service, which is different from some other agents — his strategy is ALWAYs to get the biggest deal, the most money. If you hire Boras, that is what you are hiring, and if the proper landing spot is important to a player, he will likely hire a diffferent agent.
Agreed, Buck (#23). Those criticizing Joe for what he chooses to give them for free, should step back and get a little perspective for themselves.
I’ve heard the argument that salaries have no impact on ticket prices. I don’t believe it, and am not sure how one could prove it. I am not saying only salaries impact ticket prices. I 100 percent agree that demand is causative; the Sox charge more than the Royals because there’s more demand for tickets, and more demand to pay $500 or whatever to sit in the front row.
But I don’t believe that if a salary cap were instituted that, for example, cut every salary in half from present levels, there’d be no impact on ticket prices. I am not saying owner revenues would remain level either; they absolutely would take advantage. But they wouldn’t eat all of it.
Agents clearly are to blame too. If so many of them didn’t seek absolute top dollar, things wouldn’t have escalated the way they did, payrolls would be lower, and so would ticket prices.
And sure, fans are responsible as well, as long as we feed demand in the current system. And I’m not saying what anyone ’should’ do. I don’t entirely believe in ’should,’ especially as it regards other people. But things could be different. Maybe player salaries could be half what they are but tickets would be 75 percent what they are, and the owners would ‘win,’ but that’s not the aspect that interests me.
Put it that way: Red Sox ticket prices have radically outpaced inflation. I’ll grant that much of that has to do with demand, because the Red Sox don’t have empty seats. If you can point me to data showing how Pirates and Royals ticket price increases have nearly mirrored inflation, I’ll have to give in. But I imagine those are two examples of cities where demand didn’t drive ticket prices nearly as much as demand for competent players did.
Matt “not the socialist” –
While I agree with most of what you are saying, the difference between Albert Pujols and a teacher is not that nobody can do what Albert Pujols does. Many millions of people can do what Albert Pujols does, they just can’t do it as well as him. Somewhere in America, there is a teacher that is the equivalent of Albert Pujols — he or she is that good that nobody can teach the subject matter, engage students, inspire, etc. as well as this person does. The difference of replacability is only because of where we draw the lin eof acceptable performance. I’ve spent 19 years of my life in school — I have a bachelors degree and a Masters, and I’ve had all sorts of teachers — good, exceptional, poor, fair, indifferent. Our values as a society don’t differentiate the pay between these nearly so well as we do in baseball. Put another way, paraphrasing something Bill James once wrote, it is much more important to us as a society to have great baseball teams than great teachers — we may say that isn’t so, but all of our behavior as a society makes clear that it is (not to say some individuals don’t feel differently). If we as a society decided that mediocre teachers weren’t acceptable and that we were willing to pay to have extraordinary teachers, then we would have great teachers, but we would have to pay them more to attract the talent away from other pursuits.
“is the major problem with journalism today. You get paid to be objective (as a journalist), not to be friends with Selena Robertsâ€
In one sense, quite right – he is NOT paid to be friends with Selena Roberts. That would make it no friendship at all. But neither is he paid, on his personal and free (to us) blog, to share his opinion on Roberts’ book. He may, or he may not. Unless the KC Star or SI or whomever gives him money to review the book (and I don’t see you volunteering), then this isn’t his job.
I confess to being a little envious right now – I’m in the midst of writing a story in which one character says that there are no objective authorities to resolve their problem, “only more-or-less interested parties… I include myself in this, by the way.” I suppose that people will think that I’ve ripped off the idea from the Mighty Poz.
At least I’ll be accused of mooching from the best.
Boras does a tremendous job of selling himself, but other than that he’s no better or worse than a lot of agents. There have been several instances in which Varitek ended up costing his clients a considerable sum of money. Varitek, who has been discussed here, likely lost about $5 million for this season due to Boras’ advice to decline arbitration.
However, Boras is able to spark controversy, keep his name in the news, and as a result attract high profile and high talent clients, even though he is no better or worse at negotiating contracts than most other sports agents. The truth is that it isn’t a big deal to get someone like Alex Rodriguez, widely perceived as one of the (if not the) most talented players in the game, a huge contract.
Hey, it’s Joe’s blog, he provides it to us for free, pays all the expenses out of his own pocket, and thus has the right to comment or not comment on any subject he chooses. On his personal blog, he’s got full editorial rights and basically owes us nothing, and is under no journalistic obligation to tell us which side of the ARod-Roberts debate he lands on. (And besides, by writing a lengthy post about bias in reporting, I think he is making a comment about Roberts’ book. Of course, that could just be my own bias coming into play.)
I doubt if it’s a coincidence the Mariners’ offer was $1 million. There’s a lot of romance and associations with that number. Millionaire! Never have to work again!
One advantage to having an agent — any agent — is that you don’t suddenly have strange men offering you one! million! dollars! if you’ll just sign now. It’d be like buying a car on steroids.
Of course, sometimes the agent can make the family crazy, too, like the famous Colorado draftee from a few years back who passed up the huge contract. People have strange and emotional responses to money.
Another agreeing that Joe has absolutely no obligation to review Roberts’ book on a free blog – I certainly wouldn’t mess with one of my friendships in the same situation. If the newspaper asked him to write a review of the book, that’s another matter, but unless it does so, this is in no way part of his job. I don’t understand why people seem to need Joe’s vindication of their own opinions, anyway.
JoPo- thank you for the amazing blog, and fulfilling a request to write about the evil of agents, if showing both sides of the coin. Boras is again up to his old tricks with Royal prospect Dan Gutierrez, wonder what the Boras angle is? Besides making the Royals mad. I would like to point out that Tom Osborne and Chip Beck had a scant few SECONDS to make those tremendous decisions. SECONDS! We are still talking and debating them years later, and they had to decide and decide immediately. I applaude them both. They were both right.
mike
No, Jason Varitek’s salary has nothing to do with the price of Red Sox tickets. Just imagine what would happen if the Red Sox dropped the price of tickets (hint, think about how hard they are to get right now.)
Do you see what’s going on? The ticket prices are so high because there’s such a demand for them; if they lowered the prices, all that would happen is the tickets would sell out faster.
To put it another way, there’s a secondary market for Red Sox tickets, on StubHub and other places, and in front of Fenway with the scalpers, and they (almost invariably) sell for more than face value. Why? Because that’s where supply and demand set the price. If the Red Sox lowered ticket prices, again, not only would the tickets sell out faster, but the prices on the secondary market wouldn’t change. The Red Sox can’t change the demand for their product.
As others have covered, player salaries have ZERO to do with ticket prices. Owners have used that as a tool to try to lower player salaries for decades – by saying ticket prices have to go up to support salaries, they deflect fan anger from themselves to the players.
RE: Chip Beck – much of that anger/scorn was fostered by the on-air comments of then color commentator Ken Venturi who lambasted Beck for a few holes after his decision, (especially when he failed to make birdie after laying up, IIRC). Venturi was the KING of the 2nd-guess – a year later he ripped TOm Lehman for hitting it in the bunker on 18 when he hit an iron off the tee preceisely to avoid hitting the bunker. Beck stated in every interview afterward that he had a slightly downhill, cuppy lie that would have required a 4 wood and unlike someone like a Greg Norman, hw could not hit a high, spinning long iron that might have stopped. There was little good that could have come from hitting a 4W there. . . .
@Mike (#1)
I’m a pretty big fan of socialism (the Biblical model, anyway), but your conclusions just aren’t true. If Scott Boras only got his clients, say 75% of what he normally gets them, who gets the remaining 25%? Certainly not the fans; the owners would.
Owners are going to charge ticket prices based on what the supply/demand curve tells them they can get, not based on what their payroll costs are. If payroll dropped by 25% and fans protested en masse when owners declined to reduce ticket prices, THEN maybe something would happen. Otherwise, you’re just talking about a wealth redistribution between billionaire owners and millionaire baseball players. Which is better for baseball? I don’t know, but I don’t think that’s what makes Boras the agent of evil.
I dislike Boras because he uses ethically questionable practices and comes across as ruthless and greedy (most of the time).
I hope everyone who thinks player salaries are related to ticket prices enjoyed their free tickets to the NCAA Final Four this year.
Yeah, but Osborne and Beck had spent their lifetimes getting ready to make that decision in that (or a similar) situation. I mean, I never played sports past high school, and I have simulated in my head a bazillion different situations – like going for two when down by 18 (12 after the touchdown.)
Boras does have an obligation to baseball as a whole insofar as he benefits from keeping the pie growing. If baseball were to significantly shrink, then neither he nor his client does very well. There was an Onion article several years ago titled something like “Yankees sign every major league player.” If the Yankees became the Globetrotters and the rest of the league the Senators or whatever they were called, that would not be good for Boras or the owners or the clients.
But this is why all discussion of baseball as a zero sum game is wrong. Baseball is simply not a zero sum game. If the games are entertaining and compelling, more fans come to the games, more fans watch the games and the advertisements that happen throughout. I know that not everyone here is a Royals fan, but it strikes me as ironic that this needs to be pointed out in the middle of the Zack Greinke experience. The man is inflating the pie in our presence, folks.
I am not a big fan of your opening disclaimor, but at some level I understand it. I enjoyed your observation, and understand that you don’t want to wade further in than that, and I respect it, even if I am curious as to your broader opinions about her book.
Re: Mike
You may not believe it, but look at ticket prices for events where player compensation is strictly controlled like college football. Last time I went to the USC/WSU game the face value of the ticket was $60. Player salaries have nothing to do with those tickets and the price is comparable if not higher then those sports where players are compensated. Derived demand is the result for the final product being the driver of price rather then the cost of inputs
Personally if I draft a player number one overall in a draft and can’t get a hold of him I would be really, really, concerned. Probably concerned enough to call excessively and failing that show up at his residence.
Look, this blog has given me many hours of enjoyment at no charge and obviously Joe doesn’t owe anybody anything.
But…I do think that because Joe said in February that Roberts was an acquaintance that he didn’t know very well it feels a little flimsy to demure on critiquing the book now because she’s such a good friend that Joe can’t be objective.
I’d love to read Joe’s honest appraisal of this book and there’s every reason to believe that he could give it a fair treatment. But hey, it’s his basement, it’s his rules, it’s his show….
Screw Tom Osborne and the old-timey coaches who voted his team as the champion in 97, when Michigan was clearly superior. I guess you can win the big one when a bunch of your old buddies decide to give you a retirement present.
Casey @ 12:
“Joe
When you start out by saying Selena is a friend and you’re not going to get into it, you basically tell us you are not in agreement with what she did or else you would have supported her publicly. Agenda is what makes readers not trust the media and this is a perfect example of why. Whether the author was a friend or not should not have an influence on how ou do your job.”
I couldn’t disagree more. Joe electing not to get into it is absolutely NOT tantamount to saying he disagrees with her. His motivation could easily be that, precisely because they are friends he does not want to “take her side” and have that be dismissed as nothing more than friendship.
Wasn’t the Chip Beck Decision a few years after Ray Floyd “going for it” on a playoff hole at Augusta, putting it in the water and essentially handing the title to Faldo?
To answer a few criticisms of my own post:
Everyone who pointed out that Joe does not get paid for this blog is quite right. I was trying to draw a comparison (and did so poorly) between a statement Joe made and a problem I see with the Media in general. Namely, they are not objective and in most cases cannot even see or admit their biases. To Joe’s credit this is not his problem, he gave us full disclosure on his feelings towards Ms Roberts. I commend him.
In addition, everyone who pointed out that Joe has no obligation–on his personal and free website– to discuss any topic he does not wish to opine about is also quite right. Joe provides free content, excellent content as a matter of fact, and we should all be grateful.
However, his content is not and should not be above reproach. This is a major story and Joe apparently wants to leave it alone because he sees Ms. Roberts in the hall (joke and hyperbole). Mind you, he already stated his support for Ms Roberts in a post several weeks back. Now, it appears his defense for her might be waning.
I highly respect Joe’s ideas and opinions, this is precisely why I want to hear his full thoughts on Ms. Roberts. If he chooses to not share them, fine. BUT if you take that easy road enough times where does that get you?
I understand you can’t do this because you work for SI, but I’m waiting for some journalist to come out and give Selena Roberts the thrashing she deserves. After how she covered the Duke lacrosse scandal for the New York Times, it’s amazing she ever got another job in journalism. And all her accusations against A-Rod are either petty, unfounded, or both. She’s contorted A-Rod’s texas teammates telling him he’s “tipping his pitches too early,” i.e. adjusting his positioning strategically before the pitcher begins his wind-up, giving a very observant batter an extra split second’s notice as to what pitch is coming, into evidence of some bizarre, unimplementable system of pitch tipping. I’m not an A-Rod defender by any means, but this book is utterly ridiculous.
I think Boras fails his clients because his approach is short-term thinking (get the biggest contract now), and seems to ignore the broader interests of his client. For example, an agency who is getting a lucrative deal that leaves a few dollars on the table, can position his client as the good guy, the team guy, the stand-up cares-about-the-fans-and-community guy. And guess what? That guy has a greater presence and reputation within baseball and without– there are monetary benefits, like additional endorsements, but there are also benefits of status, respect, etc. This client can become an amabassador for the team, for the game, and can better move on from his athletic career to a more fulfilling future for himself and everyone around him.
Boras seems driven by ego, and his approach seems to be to drive the player’s ego in the same direction. Imagine A-Rod had he gone down a different path, and you’d have the kind of love fest that we are seeing for Ken Griffey, Jr.
Regarding the Chip Beck portion of the post, I believe it is important to consult someone well beyond our means of comprehension.
As Ricky Bobby said, “If you ain’t first, you’re last.”
A note on all agents–their job is to get the best “deal” for their client, not necessarily the most money…
Unfortunately (for him), Boras is catagorized as an agent that goes after the dollars, and he is remembered more for the negative things that happen (JD Drew, Chan Ho Park, Darren Driefert, A-Rod, Rey Sanchez, etc.) than when he actually does good for a client…
That’s his fate, and I’m sure he’s living well…
I remember back in the ’90s when Jeff George was a free agent and looked at coming to KC… I believe Leigh Steinberg was his agent, and he obviously didn’t come here.. (I believe that was when he signed with Atlanta, but my memory is fuzzy…)
I’ve always thought that if he would have come to the Chiefs he would have been in the perfect situation–lead the offense but not lead the team… With vets like Marcus Allen, Derrick Thomas and Neil Smith, the Chiefs already had readily identifiable players and George could have just been the QB–not the face/lightning rod of the organization…
Plus, the Chiefs had a Super Bowl-contending team, and coming in and winning (or even going to) the Super Bowl would have made him a hero here… Instead, it seems as if he went for the money (and the stats, if he did go to Atlanta and play for June Jones with that decision)…
Ask Curt Schilling what it’s like to walk into a situation where they are desparate for a championship, and then to deliver…
As for Boras, I was the marketing director for the Wichita Wranglers in 1998 when JD Drew made his affiliated professional baseball debut with the Arkansas Travelers in Wichita… Drew played in St. Paul for a year while shunning the Phillies before signing with the Cardinals… His Arkansas debut was on July 4 and we had a packed house of families waiting for the post-game fireworks show… Before each at bat we played money-themed music for him, and by his fifth AB the entire crowd was booing him… Pavlov was right…
“A note on all agents–their job is to get the best “deal†for their client, not necessarily the most money…”
An agent’s job is to do what the client wants. A player who hires Boras does so to make the most money. Considering how much money Drew, Park, Dreifort, and Arod have made, the players should be happy with what Boras has done.
I admire Joe for being loyal his friends. Real loyalty is awfully scarce.
I don’t need Joe to advise me what to think about Selena Roberts.
If I were a baseball player, I’d hire Scott Boras as my agent, and I don’t think I’d ever have a regret for doing so.
DTRO @ 45….amen!
Spud @ 47, Floyd hit it in the water on #11, a par 4. He just hit a bad shot…wasn’t going for a par 5 in two.
One thing nobody’s mentioned is that you have to trust that Beck was telling the truth after the round. I highly doubt that he’d admit that there was a 25% chance that he could have pulled off the shot. I’m not saying he was lying (I have no idea if he could have or not…today 236 yds is nothing…back in 1993 it was a different story), just saying that he had incentive to claim that he couldn’t hit the shot.
“Boras liked to turn his clients against a team even if it meant that he had to cook up the illusion of hostility.”
Sounds like someone who has studied the history of player/team relations. The owners have done everything they can to try to screw the players out of money. And there’s no reason to think they won’t continue to do so. Seems like Boras has the right approach here.
DTRO- No, no, no. Nebraska vs. Michigan 1997 for the national championship. Michigan had a great defense, and an meh offense. Part of what made their d so good was Charles Woodson. In this mythical game Scott Frost goes 2/9 for 47 yards and a td to the tightend. Charles Woodson deosn’t defend a pass the whole game- he is a non factor. Nebraska wins 45 to 20. Michigan wears down and just can’t get their d off the field. Nebraska marchs and marchs and marchs. The odds makers at the time said they would have made Nebraska like an 8 point favorite in a Nebraksa-Michigan game.
“Everything is written or reported from a certain point of view” perfectly describes politcal reporting in this country.
Just watch FOX News and MSNBC cover the same story sometime. Completely opposite views, sometimes comically.
Its a good gutcheck to watch both sides of the argument. I then formulate my own opinion somewhere in the middle.
Re Joe’s first paragraph, my biased opinion summarized it as “no comment”. I therefore concluded I don’t know what Joe thinks about the A-Rod scandal.
It botheres me that a “no comment” answer can have people thinking they know what a person thinks. When I was a private golf club member I used to be asked by directors what I thought about a new computer system (because I was a computer guy) or a hole change (because I was a good golfer). I’d always reply “no comment”. They’d make a reply like “Oh, it’s that bad, huh?”, or “Well, you don’t know all the facts leading to the decision”. Well, again in my biased opinion, no comment meant no comment.
Unless someone proves me wrong, I don’t think any of us know what Joe thinks about this story. Period.
I recall a quote from a Husker O-Lineman after the Orange Bowl. He said that if NU had tied and won the title, he would not have worn the (blank) ring. TO didn’t go for two because he gave a whit if a sportswriter called him courageous or not. He wanted to win the game.
And in 1997, Michigan beat Ryan Leaf’s Washington St. team by less than a td in the Rose Bowl. Nebraska beat Peyton Manning’s SEC champion Tennessee team by 28 points in the Orange Bowl in a game that wasn’t even that close. Based on their records (both undefeated) and their performance in their bowl game, were the sportswriters or the coaches the ones who gave a gift?
It has been repeated ad nauseaum that the coaches gave TO a gift, but anyone who watched those two games knows differently.
I think that it’s fair enough to come to one conclusion after reading all these posts:
Matt Heaton, president of hostmonster.com, is the Scott Boras of web hosting.
“We see the world the way we see the world.”
There’s a book called “True Enough” by Farhad Manjoo that delves into this phenomenon. He illustrates his points using mostly political anecdotes (Fox News v. MSNBC; Swift Boat Veterans, etc.), but those points are largely universal. It basically argues that our minds are already made up, and in only rare instances can we be convinced otherwise. Opposing arguments, regardless of quality, will only solidify our current view. And we’re all convinced of our own objectivity.
From his book:
“…each of us thinks that on any given subject our views are essentially objective, the product of a dispassionate, realistic accounting of the world. This is naive realism, though, because we are incapable of recognizing the biases that operate upon us… The very act of giving [the other side] equal weight seems like bias. Like inappropriate evenhandedness… we all want objectivity, but we disagree about what objectivity is.”
It was considered a gift to T.O. because Nebraska should have lost the “kick” game.
Wow, alot of people here have inside information that goes on between Boras and his clients. It is interesting that Boras takes so much blame for guys going to the wrong place because they were offered more money or other such “mistakes”. I want to know how so many people know what Boras is telling his clients. Maybe Boras has told his clients that they should consider another destination, but they want the most money. If a client’s goal is to get the most money, then it would be unethical for Boras not to attempt to get the client the most money that he can within the rules. Boras may very well be acting exactly the way his client wants him to act. Then again, Boras is willing to take the blame for that as it shields his client from criticism from the unthinking masses.
Nebraska won that OT game against Mizzou on a pass that was kicked in the air by a player laying flat on the ground in the end zone. For that reason alone their title in 1997 was illegitimate.
Joe, this is a fantastic entry, thanks.
I find myself being a skeptic…when praise or recognition for something is near universal, I usually smell some sort of rat. Of course, that in itself can be a point of view through which things are often seen incorrectly.
I often think of the confirmation bias in these situations…it is very easy to fly on autopilot regarding certain opinions, rejecting all nonconforming evidence out of hand while seeking out confirming information, and all the easier to do so in sports.
Last year, for example, the “approved general consensus” was that Missouri football failed because of defensive inadequacies, and you could find doezens of mainstream articles detailing such. Each reminded me of the dozens of articles you could have found in 1995 about the Colorado Rockies. And, no matter what the evidence presented about league context, you were not going to convince Joe Q Fan of anything else.
Dan #63,
The claim was that Michigan was “clearly superior”…not that NU won a game in lucky fashion.
NU did score a late TD on a fluke play. However, NU’s crime is that the fluke play occurred at the end of regulation. Had it occurred in the second quarter, no one would remember it and few would argue that Michigan was “robbed” of the national title.
1997 UM won by margins of 7, 4, 6 and 5. Did they not get any luck in any of those four games? WSU was at the UM 26 and denied a play by some shaky clock-keeping at game’s end.
Nebraska only had 2 close games…the Missouri OT win and a 3 point win at Colorado.
Comparable regular seasons…NU had to play a conf. champ. game…NU clearly more impressive in bowl game against superior opponent.
The coaches considered this and voted NU #1. The urban myth that the coaches ignored the evidence to give TO a gift does not fit an objective look at the facts.
Pro athletes are some of the most competitive people on earth. And competing to see who makes the most money is very important to a lot of them.
If the top player made $50,000 instead of $30 million, it would still be very important to a lot of them to be the guy who makes $50,001, and be known as the guy who makes the most money in the game.
And back when players only made 50 grand a year, a lot of fans called them greedy and blamed them for higher ticket prices, while the owners sat back and laughed and counted their millions. That part hasn’t changed either.
Craig, number 63, it’s an interesting comparison, but ultimately falls flat. Boras, of all the bad things he may be, is NOT an idiot.
I wonder if the sentiment towards decisions like Beck’s have changed over the years. I think David Toms was lauded for not going for the green in 2 on the 72nd hole of the PGA Championship he won. And IIRC, Zach Johnson didn’t go for any par 5 green in two the year he won the Masters. It was a story after the tournament but I think he got some heat during the telecast when he laid up on 13 on Sunday. Of course, those guys won so it’s hard to argue with there strategy.
Umm, “their strategy”. I don’t recommend simultaneously typing and talking on the phone.
JJ @ 67
I think the reason it was considered a gift is that UM was #1 before the bowl games in both polls. IIRC, no #1 team that won its bowl game was ever passed in the final poll.
Plus, Nebraska beat Tennessee. Rumor was that Fulmer was pissed that Woodson won the Heisman over Manning, he didn’t even vote UM #2 in the final poll and that cost them the ranking.
UM also had a hell of a schedule that year. Opened against SI preseason #1 Colorado, played @ Penn State when they were #2 or #3, and then closed with OSU when they were a top 4 team.
Looking at margin of victory doesn’t make much sense. Michigan was built around a great defense and a so/so offense. It’s hard to blow people out with that combination.
Finally, WSU did deserve one last play at the Rose Bowl (bad timekeeping). But, on that final drive, WSU completed a 30-40 yd pass where there was obviously offensive pass interference on WSU that wasn’t called (ref reached for the flag and then decided not to throw it). The bad timekeeping was a make-up call for that, IMO.
I think UM would have won the game, but who knows. It’s a shame they never played.
Jim K #70 –
Actually, if memory serves, both Toms and Johnson were criticized on air for their decisions prior to their shots. After they had won, there was a lot of “Well, I guess he knew what he was doing.” (And, yes, to this day, Beck is brought up as an example of a golfer losing his nerve at a critical time; it was mentioned at least once during this year’s Masters Sunday).
Two observations about that:
(1) Yes, he (Toms or Beck) DID know what he was doing. As Mark W #5 points out, the only person who knew whether or not that was a shot he could make was Beck (and maybe his caddy). Or, to put it another way, it’s the difference between playing the game and talking about it.
(2) The validity or “correctness” (if that’s a word) of a decision is NOT conditioned on the result of the following action. The decision and the result are two very different things.
My problem with Boras is two-fold:
1) The relationship he helps creates between a club and a player is not as good one. It’s incredibly deceitful. How on earth can that be good for baseball?
2) While his strategy works overall, there are players who really become disadvantaged but it. Say he has 5 young clients, whom he tells to not sign long term contracts. Two of those have serious injuries and never get the money they would have, but Boras gets more money overall. Boras is risking only his clients’ welfare, never his own. His advice of no long-term extensions is not good advice for everyone. The same goes for other deals.
I have absolutely no problem with trying to get the most money. I have a problem with the way he does it.
Red,
It would have been a good game…you make good points…my disagreement is with people who say that NU didn’t belong on the field with Michigan and that the coaches who voted for NU did so sentimentally and not because they thought NU was the better team.
My point is not that MU’s wins weren’t worthy because they were close, just that if you win four close games, you probably had some luck along the way, just as Nebraska did. However, Nebraska’s luck was a little more spectacular and that is somehow held agains them. Just like the ‘85 Royals crime was that Denkinger’s call was in the 9th inning of game 6, not the 2nd inning of game 3.
I never heard the rumor that Fullmer didn’t vote MU in the top 2…that’s speculation…and presumes that everyone in both polls voted both teams some combination of 1-2.
The controversy had started before the bowls, and both teams had a final statement. It’s hard to argue that NU was not more dominant against a superior opponent. That seems to be something that UM apologists don’t want to get into, yet clearly relevant. It wasn’t to the 17 (and a half) sportswriters who flipped their votes (I can’t find info on the coaches poll before the bowl game). Were they good ole boys giving TO a gift too, or was Nebraska impressive enough to warrant switching their vote?
“The Mariners flew to Miami and knocked on Alex’s door. They were not greeted warmly.â€
Wow. I’ve designated a negotiator and you show up at my door to avoid talking to him. Very unprofessional.
Boras is a lawyer and salary negotiations are his court. He has one interest: the representation of his client. He is compromised in all sorts of ways (agency interest, multiple clients competing for the same jobs, other things I can’t think of) but he’s certainly got a greater interest in the welfare of his client than does the team.
Also: @#10, The Things They Carried is a great book but it’s a novel. The O’brien wartime memoir is called If I Die In a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home. It’s also great.
A lot of you guys are missing the point. Obviously, we all know that Joe can comment on whatever topics he chooses to. That’s his right.
I think the main point is that some of us feel (I know I do) that if Joe was not friends with Selena Roberts, he WOULD be commenting on her book. We aren’t saying that he HAS to comment on the book; we’re saying that if he was already going to comment on it, not wanting to hurt Selena Roberts’ feelings isn’t a good enough reason to not write a post on it.
Sorry, David, a lot of us guys think you are the one missing the point. I say all of the following not to criticize you or anyone else, but to lay out the case. This is Joe’s site. There is no such thing as not a good enough reason not to write a post, on anything. None of us is owed a thing. We could name any number of possible reasons why he might not want to write on this, and we still might be wrong. He doesn’t need what you deem a good enough reason. I hope you’ll take this dispassionately and at face value, but I think it’s rude to suggest someone is obligated to write what they don’t want to write, especially on their free-access blog.
I think you’ve got an unusual concept of journalists writing objectively. Just because they’re not supposed to cheerlead doesn’t mean they have to tackle subjects they don’t want to. I don’t know the process at the Star, but if Joe wants to start taking orders, probably he’ll start there, where they pay him and at least have more of a right than we do to tell him what he ’should’ be writing about.
Judges can recuse themselves when a case that comes before them features a conflict of interest. They might even be obligated, but at the very least, they have the right. As does Joe here. Bruce Springsteen doesn’t ‘owe’ his fans in every arena ‘Tunnel of Love,’ either.
That’s it, Joe. I’m calling you out for your obviously non-objective opinion on Snuggies. I mean, c’mon man! You’re a journalist!
I have no opinions on Boras. The easy point of view is that he is a villain. But I don’t know enough and have never seen him operate first hand.
The point of the post is that it is impossible, even for a star journalist, to not have a point of view. Objectivity is always the goal, but it is impossible. If you don’t believe me, just check out Lupica on the New York Daily News.
I’ve been writing my blog for three years now. I do not cover just one team or have just one focus. But all of my writing is biased, despite how clever I think I can be. It comes from decades of watching the sport I love and the players who play that sport.
But this is one area that is somewhat helped by sabermetrics. At least when comparing players, we at least have data sources that can help our objectivity. But how does that help with Beck’s situation. None of us knew that he had a lie that would not enable him to hit the ball 236 yards. We would just have a stat that says that when he has 236 yards to the green, he lands on the green 55 times out of a hundred (obviously making that stat up). That’s were point of view comes in because we either approach his decision as wise for being prudent and managing the game or weak because he didn’t take the risk.
Great writing, Mr. Posnanski (as usual).
Craig (#61) made me laugh outloud.
haha.
see, I told you.
I’m just happy that Joe used the correct spelling for “forgo” – something that doesn’t happen too often.
My whole beef with Boras came from when he LIED to Tom Hicks about the money that was offered to AROD and got another 70 million because of it. Is this a good agent or a dirty rotten thief?? I feel that all legit offers should be on the table like EBAY so you know what you are bidding against. Everyone has a threshold of what they are going to pay- it should be out in the open to prevent what he did. My view of him has not changed and never will bnecause of this. I think he is ruining the game.
Boras aside, just for the record: objective studies that I have read have persuasively shown through different sort of financial/statistical evidence that there is no correlation between player salaries and higher ticket prices.
You know what correlates with higher ticket prices? Taxpayer-funded stadiums. Which also correlate with greater profits for the owners, all of whom are way, way more wealthy than any player.
As a long time Red Sox fan I dislike Mr. Boras for the way he conducts business-Red Sox related:
1.If anyone thinks Manny is smart enough to pull the stuff he did last year he is naive. Boras would get no money if Manny was extended by the Sox as that contract was negotiated by a previous agent. Manny in the line-up probably would have the Sox in the world series.
2.Varitek was screwed bu Boras telling him to not accept arbitration. Varitek said he was unaware of compensation being required(whose job is that). Also at the beginning of Varitek’s career he held out a year costing him more millions.
3.A few years ago a client(pitcher)of Boras was offered $7m out of highschool and Boras convinced him to turn it down and play semi-pro ball(he was not good). Despite this he was drafted again and offered $5m again Boras turned it down. Who knows what would have happened had the pitcher had proper coaching. He now changes tires for $10.50 an hour at Costco.
4. I believe Mr Boras squeezes every last nickle out of the clubs for his clients, but I also believe he does not think of placing a client in a better place for a few less dollars.
An extra million or three or ten is not worth being in a bad situation. The money top players command allow them complete financial security why be in a bad place?
5. I heard MLB was going to investigate Mannyy’s shenanigans last year but have heard nothin further. No player should be allowed to quit on a club without repercussions.
Just venting-Ben
@83
Hicks is a billionaire businessman. If he’s dumb enough to bid against himself and overpay by $70 million, that’s his problem.
Lucky for him, he makes better decisions running his other businesses or he’d go broke…oh wait…oops.
regarding the ticket price/salary ‘correllation’:
Ok, just a few macroeconomic points (yes, I know the site that this is being posted on, and no i’m not a professor, so don’t mistake these points for roubini or krugman…)
1) value of commodities is derrived from relative scarcity
2) price is often a correllation of what the so-called free market will bear (assuming appropriate competition in such a market)
3) baseball does not operate in a free market
4) non-free market participants will often charge a supra-competitive price (see OPEC)
5) ergo, if baseball is a non free market participant (as evidenced by the antitrust exemption), they will charge as much money as people are willing to pay to maintain high profit margins (i.e.: regardless of what one player will make)
“1) The relationship he helps creates between a club and a player is not as good one. It’s incredibly deceitful. How on earth can that be good for baseball?”
Baseball has survived over a century of deceitful owner/player relaltions.
“My whole beef with Boras came from when he LIED to Tom Hicks about the money that was offered to AROD and got another 70 million because of it. Is this a good agent or a dirty rotten thief??”
Good agent. Sounds like SOP for agents.
I’m not sure if anyone else wrote about this, because I didn’t read the whole thread…but if the M’s didn’t make a contract offer within 15 days, A-Rod could’ve been an amateur free agent ala Travis Lee years later, correct? Maybe the M’s knew this before the Twins and Giants discovered a couple years later (Matt White)?
WRT Chip Beck: if his name was Driver Beck, then maybe he should have gone for the eagle. But the thing nobody has mentioned is: how close was Beck to finishing third (or fourth)? How much money might Beck have been risking if he let fly and flubbed? Did he want to risk (say) $100,000 on a shot he thought he was only 25% likely to make in order to have a chance (not a certainty, just a chance) or earning more money? So frequently we see folks on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” walk away from guessing at doubling their money when they never have worse than a 25% chance of guessing right from multiple choice, and frequently much better. Beck was playing to support his family, to make as much money as he could in a career that would end before most of our careers will end (because golf is a sport and age does matter) and if he thought he was doing the right thing, then he was.
WRT Scott Boras: he is not paid to be nice. He earns his money by getting the best deals possible. His clients should know that sometimes the deals he turns down will turn out to be the best deals they could have gotten. But my understanding of his responsibilities is for him to call Rey Sanchez and say, “You’ve been offered $3M per year. I *think* I can get you more, but the final decision is yours. What do I do?” If Boras didn’t pass along that offer, then he was negligent at best. If Boras is not right far more often then he is wrong, then he’ll stop getting new clients. But if Boras passed along the offer, and Sanchez thought about it and said, “Heck with $3M. I’m worth $5M!” then it’s Sanchez’s decision. And frankly, if I’m a 33 year old shortstop with no gold gloves, no walks, no power, no speed, and a career OPS+ in the low 70s, and somebody wants to pay me $3M/year, I’m saying thank you very much. It might have been Boras’s responsibility to tell him to accept, but for all we know, Boras did tell him that it was a good offer.
WRT our host and his choice of what to write about it, it’s his choice. Maybe he completely agrees with Selena Roberts. Maybe Joe’s been on the believing end of things that turned out to be lies (like the Duke lacrosse prosecutor, who basically tossed his career away in a manner so insane can we really fault Roberts for believing him?). Maybe Joe thinks what he’d write would hurt feelings he doesn’t want to hurt, or maybe he fears it would make him appear worse of a writer and he doesn’t want to hurt himself. But it’s his choice. We have seen some things written based on the Rodriguez camp which have turned out to be false. I personally would love to see a blog about the book. Not because I’m particularly interested in the book; I won’t read it, I hate the Yankees, and I’m sorry that ARod seems to have used PEDs. But I read virtually all of Joe’s blogs, and I find baseball blogs far more interesting than snuggie or Bruce or NASCAR blogs. And as long as I’m ranting, that family is eating up way too much valuable writing time of yours, Joe
*
As you may know from your Olympics/Bruce posts and my comments, my tongue is firmly in my cheek on this one.
Anyway, Joe, whatever you choose to write on, or not write on, is by definition fine with me. Perhaps if I had more ambition, I’d get a masters in Journalism, find some way to become your editor (like I’ll live long enough to pull that off), and then I get to tell you what to write. I think I’ll settle for who I am and what I have and be grateful for every blog of yours I get to read.
@Ben Goldsmith
The draftee was Matt Harrington and the agent Tommy Tanzer, NOT Boras.
All of Boras’ clients know coming in he’s a greedy SOB out to get them the best price. They know he can alienate a lot of people. If they hire him, they make a conscious decision to let him to take some big risks for a big payoff. Occasionally he’ll leave money on the table by being too aggressive, but overall, he probably gets the best overall monetary value for his clients.
[...] morning, I had a perfect post in mind. I was all set to point to Joe Posnanski’s muted criticism of Selena Roberts’ cognitive dissona… in her tilted A-Rod biography. It was the perfect parallel, because after a Cubs win that felt, [...]
Brian #62 — Great quote. Thanks.
Joe, this was a very insightful blog. Being a sports fan is a great arena in which to evaluate one’s biases, since it’s really not a matter of life and death. (It’s more important than that!)
[...] is here that I will point you to a blog post by Joe Posnanski about bias. In it, Poz argues that no matter who or what, we all come at something from a point of [...]
“I hope you’ll take this dispassionately and at face value, but I think it’s rude to suggest someone is obligated to write what they don’t want to write, especially on their free-access blog.”
I just specifically said he WASN’T obligated to do it. That’s called… missing the point.
I am willing to state that a professional essay writing service is a good assistant on the path of free term papers creating. So, all students should utilize it every time they would like to buy essay papers online.