Blame agents like Scott Boras
LA Weekly's Jeff Anderson wrote an excellent feature on baseball agent Scott Boras, (mis)titled "The Boras Factor: Is super agent Scott Boras destroying the game of baseball? And what does he want now?" Despite the rhetorical title, Anderson actually provides a nuanced, fair examination of Boras. It took 7,128 words to accomplish, but it's well done.
If you believe much of what is written and said about slimy agents like Scott Boras, they are leading sports straight to Hell. Oh what a world we would live in if sports agents did not exist. Without them professional sports would most certainly not be littered by lack of loyalty, greed, out-of-control ticket prices, pampered athletes, government subsidized stadia, and so on. The problems in college athletics would also disappear. And someone (perhaps a college athletic director) might suggest that the war on terror would end too. If. We. Lived. In. A. World. Without. Sports. Agents.
Boras is a complicated figure. He's generally reviled by owners, media, and fans. Fellow agents don't particularly like him either. But Boras' clients are well represented by Boras' firm, which is really all that should matter.
The Cliff Notes version of Anderson's article:
Steve Lyons, former major leaguer and current Dodgers broadcaster, doesn't like Boras.
"He definitely affects what happens on ball clubs. No one else manipulates the game like that, like where players end up. And it's not always positive or in the best interests of the player or the game."
Jeff Musselman, former major league pitcher and current Boras associate, disagrees.
"Scott has never done anything purely for profit. He believes if you do things right, the money will follow. You can make a million dollars today, but is that in the best interests of your client in the long run?"
In 1983 Boras signed Tim Belcher and Kurt Stillwell. And soon after Boras was demanding market value salaries. According to Boras:
"Teams were irate. They said to me, 'Don't get involved, come work for us.' I told them I didn't want to be a baseball executive, I wanted to be an advocate for players, that this was bad for baseball, bad for the system."
On players' salaries
Anderson writes, "Boras' argument, one that is hard to counter, is that players should reap a fair percentage of team revenues because they are responsible for baseball's popularity and its expansion. But it is his gift for talking — part baseball knowledge, part business vision, a verbal onslaught of research and data delivered with a conviction that sounds presumptuous, if not threatening — that further sets him apart."
On a permanent World Series site
Writes Anderson, "Boras says he wants MLB to scrap the current World Series format and adopt a nine-game series in one designated city per year — the way it was played in the early 20th century. He's talked to owners and says some see nothing but upside.'
Says Boras:
"The TV and advertising and marketing revenue would explode. Places that might never have a World Series could compete for the location like they do for the Olympics. Nine games would allow a greater chance for the best team, and not just the hottest team, to win. It would be like the Super Bowl, but better."
I like the idea of designating a World Series venue, but nine games? Then again, as I learned on my trip to Australia, the sport of cricket is interminable -- and thriving.
