Go-To Guy
Agent Scott Boras is changing the business of baseball
Of course, those big numbers garner Boras big bucks, too. His 5 percent commission makes him a rich man, even after paying the 60 or so employees of Scott Boras Corp., a full-service shop that provides clients access to fitness and nutritional professionals and well-known sports psychologist Harvey Dorfman, and handles all their marketing matters. "Money and contracts are about 30 percent of what we do," says Boras.
It doesn't feel like work to Boras. "For me, baseball was always a privilege," says the native of Elk Grove, Calif., a farming hamlet south of Sacramento. "I had to get up in the morning and milk cows and do all the other work by 5 o'clock so I could get to the baseball field." While Boras went to graduate school to be a research chemist, he played for the St. Petersburg Cardinals in the Florida State League, among other minor-league teams. He was never a lock for the majors, and three knee operations ruled the big leagues out altogether. After earning a doctorate in industrial pharmacology and a law degree, Boras wound up at a Chicago law firm specializing in medical litigation. When former teammates on their way to the majors asked him to represent them, Boras realized his true calling, and in 1985 he won his first big contract, for a friend, pitcher Bill Caudill: $7.5 million over five years from the Toronto Blue Jays. Boras spent his first years as an agent crisscrossing the nation, learning the trade and recruiting.
Two decades later, his routine is quite different. An extensive scouting staff made up of former major leaguers, which reaches into Asia and Latin America, now does most of the legwork. Boras himself starts each day at 5 a.m. with a workout, then makes East Coast calls from home in this posh beach town just south of Los Angeles, where he lives with his wife and three children. More calls around the nation are followed at noon by lunch with whichever client is passing through town. He breaks up his long day by getting to one of his two teenage sons' afternoon baseball games.
On a California-perfect April day, Boras jumps into his black Range Rover, pushing the speed limit to get to Irvine by 2:30 for his sons' batting lessons. It's with legendary hitting and pitching coach Ron LeFebvre. "You want to emulate a swing?"asks LeFebvre, who offers tips to students and onlookers. "Emulate Bonds. Before him you have to go back to Pete Rose and Ted Williams."
By 4:30, Boras and a few of his staff are at the ballpark to meet with clients and take in a game. Today it's out to Anaheim for an Angels-Rangers game. Rangers first baseman and Boras client Mark Teixeira stops by the Boras Corp. box before the game to talk about a nagging injury. When they're not here, Boras and staff are at Dodger Stadium to connect with National League clients.
During the game, Boras talks baseball, baseball, and more baseball. It's either the present game--"Kenny's [Texas Rangers pitcher and client Kenny Rogers] slider is right on tonight"--or the performance of other clients around the league, updates of which are sent every 30 minutes from the office to staff pagers. "Did A-Rod homer? No? A single? But he's 2 for 3, right?" Rodriguez, now a Yankee because of Boras, has just finished a particularly dreadful series against the Red Sox, and a copy of the New York Post with the headline "Awful A-Rod" circulates among the staff, but Boras laughs it off. "It's New York," he says. "I'd be worried if he wasn't in the headlines."
advertisement
