Q. You’re numb to the perception out there? In Boston, you’ve been literally demonized.
A. Being Catholic, who you are as a person, you don’t appreciate any association with Satan.
That's from a
deep and detailed interview of Scott Boras by the Boston Herald's Michael Silverman, which I found by way of
BTF. It's a pretty interesting look at the White Sox front office's Public Enemy No. 1 (or No. 2 or 3, depending on where you slot a particular Sun-Times columnist and Frank Thomas).
It's hard to gauge how much one can trust what he says, but since we're used to seeing it from the White Sox's point of view, at the very least it provides some narrative dissonance for all you postmodernists out there. It's a Red Sox-centric article, but a lot of what he says applies to all his clients, and thus applies to Joe Crede, John Danks, etc.
I'd recommend reading the whole thing, but here are a few of the more noteworthy excerpts:
Q. Does the media represent you fairly?
A. [...]I work with a lot of GMs,
a lot of owners, I tell them, ‘Anything about a player I’m involved
with, you have a problem with, call me, we’ll address it, we’ll take
care of it now, because we have staffing to do it, we have information
to do it and we also have the relationship with players and we know
that we want them to play well for you and fulfill their contracts.’
Never hear a complaint about that, they think that’s great, and I think
everybody inside the game says we do a great job with that.
The negotiating part,
they usually filter that off to some lawyer or somebody else in the
process because they don’t really like me because we have a lot of
information. We prepare all year long for these things. I understand
that. My job is, I try to do it unemotionally, I try to do it in a
professional way, use information. We get a lot of people from scouting
departments or just writers, they think negotiation is about poker.
People ask me if I play cards all the time. I go like, ‘I don’t play
cards.’ No, like I’m a bluffer, a puffer -- they think that negotiating
is like that. I’m going, ‘That’s the last thing you want in a
negotiation.’”
Q. How about your relationship with owners - have you seen it improve?
A. With owners, basically, in the end they do not mind paying market value
for a player as long as it works and the player produces. The one thing
I tell owners is ‘Don’t sign a player and think you’re going to win a
world championship.’ That one player can never represent that. If
you’re signing a player for what he can do - it’s just like, I get
asked about the A-Rod contract all the time. (Rangers owner) Tom Hicks
is now building an emporium around his stadium, with shops, the whole
thing, the value of that property went through the roof. The football
arena is being built right near there, he got a $ 100 million
Ameriquest signage contract. His TV contract once he signed A-Rod went
from $4 million to $ 35million a year there, the property value’s
increasing, the franchise value increased, and then literally he paid
for that contract in a short period of time, the 160 acres of land went
through the roof, the value of the TV contract, the whole thing. Then
he moved the contract. He made money off Alex Rodriguez. So, not a lot
of people realize that but end-wise, it turned out to be a very smart
business move. Alex won an MVP there and had three great years there.
When I met (Red Sox
catcher and captain Jason) Varitek in high school, then college, I knew
who Varitek was -- nobody else would jump on that ship. I kept on
telling Jason, ‘You’re special, you are a leader, you are someone who
has that sense of commitment.’ This man could not catch. And he took a
racquetball, a thousand a day, to improve his hands, he was so driven.
I’m sitting there at the draft and I couldn’t get anybody to pay him
what I knew was his value. I said (to Varitek), ‘Do you want to fight
the battle?’ And, (he said), ‘Of course.’ He went back for his senior
year. That was a tough thing for Jason Varitek.
And of course the public perception for me was that was I’m an
antichrist, I’m basically, ‘You’re outside the system,’ and I kept
saying, ‘I’m going to do something I believe in.’ And I believed in
him, just like I believed in Alex Rodriguez when we went through all
the draft battles, Kevin Brown, Jimmy Abbott, whoever they were. You
wanted the industry to know ‘I’m an advocate but I’m an advocate for
players that are worth what they’re worth, you know that.’
When
Jason Varitek wins a championship, and you get a phone call and you
hear it in his voice about (their shared history) ... It’s a major
thing. I told Greg Maddux one time ‘You’re going to have to leave
Chicago.’ He loved the Cubs. ‘If you tell me your primary goal is to
win, you can’t stay there, because under this regime, the way they’re
going, it won’t happen, Greg.’ He follows your advice, goes to Atlanta.
When you get that phone call in ’95, you go whew, yeah. He goes,
‘Thanks.’ The appreciation you get for this job... for the most part,
you’re dealing with, for the most part, healthy men. I worked in a
hospital environment, I worked in medical law and I saw children born
with cerebral palsy and you’re defending against people with
teratogenic (genetic malformations) injuries. I garnered an
understanding of the fact that your work, what you do, unless your
commitment is really there, you’re literally working. Now I’m not. I’m
fortunate. I’m doing something that I really, really love.