Agent Boras Has Contorversial Style

At 2 a.m. Sunday, more than half a day after completing baseball's biggest deal, Scott Boras stood in one of the lobbies of the vast Opryland Hotel, still the center of attention.

Impeccably attired in a navy, double-breasted suit and navy dotted tie, he animatedly talked nonstop to the crowd around him -- mostly general managers and reporters.

Boras is the agent who made Kevin Brown king of baseball Saturday with a record $105 million, seven-year contract.

He is also the agent who teams -- sometimes entire cities -- love to hate.

He has come quite a ways from the life he led 21 years ago as an injury-prone infielder making $2,200 a month, trying to hang on with Arkansas and Midland in the Texas League.

"I could hit," he said. "I had my third knee operation after the '77 season. After spring training in '78, I went to law school."

Fast forward to 1997.

Boras has a client named J.D. Drew, who is taken as the second pick in the June 1997 draft by the Philadelphia Phillies.

Boras tells the Phillies his client will sign for no less than $11 million. The Phillies offer him $3.1 million, which is instantly rejected. The entire city is up in arms. Who does this college kid think he is and who is this agent?

Phillies owner Bill Gates blamed Boras for his team's inability to sign Drew.

"We always thought that we won't sign him until next spring because we have to play out all of his shenanigans," said Giles, referring to Boras.

But the Phillies never did, and Drew was eligible to re-enter the draft. He was taken fifth by St. Louis last summer.

Boras calls it all a "tragic event," saying the Phillies shouldn't have drafted Drew if they didn't want to pay the price.

Whatever the case, Drew was called up to the Cardinals in September and by all accounts is expected to be a phenom.

He's still on Bpras' client list, along with Greg Maddux, Alex Rodriguez, Bernie Williams, Jim Abbott, Tim Belcher, Alex Fernandez and Kenny Rogers.

Since the end of the World Series, Boras has spent just three nights at home -- and even that address changed while he was on the road. His family moved into a new home in a different part of Newport Beach, Calif., so h had to look up the new telephone number every time he tried to call his wife and three children.

"My wife and I see each other mostly when we go to the gym together," he said. "I totally focus my life. I watch baseball. That's the only sport I really follow."

Boras spends half his time talking with clients and potential recruits, and the rest mostly preparing for salary arbitration. He has a staff of two dozen -- including a sports psychologist -- to prepare voluminous compilations of clients' accomplishments.

When he meets with teams about free agents, he says he never reveals the details of other offers -- or sometimes even the clubs he's dealing with.

General managers accuse him of using smoke and mirrors, of getting them to raise offers in fear of phantom bidders.

Last summer, Boras promised that Williams would get a seven-year contract and said Brown would get a six-year deal -- at the very least. When he said last month he had offers in that range, some teams laughed.

"In Bernie's case, no one believed we had it. In Kevin's case, no one believed we had it. From here to eternity, they said we didn't. But in each case we did," Boras said.

"Everyone wants to shoot the messenger when the message is frustrating, but I operate in the arena of truth. When I said I had the offers, everyone scoffed and said, 'That's crazy.' In the end, everyone responded to the market and exceeded the market. And I guarantee the next time when we say we have certain years and terms, teams are going to question it. My job is to carry that bulletproof vest and go through it."

If that appears to be a fairly self-righteous style, it is -- and it works.

Some owners respect him a lot. Ask Arizona's Jerry Colangelo, who signed Boras client Andy Benes last January for $18 million over three years -- after Boras blew a $30 million, five-year deal with the Cardinals when he tried to push it to $32.5 million.

"He's tenacious. He's prepared," Colangelo said. "He understands the game of leverage. He knows how to use information and how to disseminate it."

But he also rubs people the wrong way. Ask New York Mets general manager Steve Phillips.

"He has talented clients. That's what makes him successful," Phillips said.

Boras has the respect of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, who on Thanksgiving eve signed Williams to an $87.5 million, seven-year contract.

"I'm no Boras basher," Steinbrenner said.

Boras was born Nov. 2, 1952, in Elk Grove, Calif., the son of a farmer. After playing at Elk Grove High School, he went to the University of the Pacific, where he earned a chemistry degree in 1974 and a doctorate in industrial pharmacology two years later.

During summers, he played baseball. He was bypassed in the amateur draft but was signed by the Cardinals for a $7,500 bonus -- he represented himself. He made it as high as Double-A, hitting .283 in four seasons, with five hoers, 116 RBI and 12 steals, before quitting.

Boras returned to the University of the Pacific, got a law degree in 1982, and moved to Chicago, where he spent three years as an associate with Rooks, Pitts and Poust, specializing in medical litigation.

Then Mike Fischlin, whom Boras has known since he was 9, asked him to negotiate his baseball contract with the Cleveland Indians. Suddenly, Boras found himself embarking on a new career and decided a large law firm wasn't the place to represent players.

In the 13 years since, he's acquired four dozen clients, and some former clients, Fischlin included, have joined his staff. At first, Boras was mostly known as the agent who tried to sign up potential first-round draft picks and drive up their signing bonuses.

"I thought that was patently unfair," Boras said. "I thought as my community service I would represent players in the draft."

While perhaps not community service, other agents soon followed his example and began recruiting high school and college players. And after the Brown deal Saturday, a few even complimented him -- first making sure their names wouldn't be used.

Still, Boras remains an outsider.

"The normal fraternity of community that goes on between agents is not really something we participate in because, frankly, we have a different approach as to our information and what we do," he said.

© 1998 SportsLine USA, Inc. All rights reserved