Almost exactly a year ago, I reported that New York Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira fired his longtime agent Scott Boras in the middle of an 8-year, $160 million contract that Boras negotiated. Boras will continue to be paid his commission on said contract, which has a term that spans until 2016.
It’s hard to forget the things that Teixeira said when he determined that he would be leaving Boras Corp.
“There’s no reason to get into a lot of specifics right now, but sometimes business relationships just run their course. For me and my family, right now this is the best decision for me.”
“I felt at times I was Mark Teixeira, Scott Boras client, instead of Mark Teixeira, baseball player. We had a great relationship and he gave me everything that I asked for contract-wise.”
“He was obviously disappointed. Scott and I have had a great relationship business-wise. We both have worked well together. I’ve known him for 12 years. After 12 years, sometimes it’s just time to make a little bit of a change. Hopefully when I see him, we’ll be able to shake hands.”
Teixeira has finally completed the change, hiring Casey Close of Excel Sports Management. But it probably was not only Close and his big name clients such as Derek Jeter and Ryan Howard who swayed Teixeira to Excel Sports Management. I suspect that former Career Sports Entertainment (CSE) employee Victor Menocal had something to do with it. Menocal was not only teammates with Teixeira at Georgia Tech, he was Teixeira’s roommate. And he is now an employee of Excel Sports Management.
Since Menocal left CSE, he has been influential in bringing in Jason Heyward, Freddie Freeman, and now, Mark Teixeira as Excel Sports Management clients. Talk about a man pushing his weight. I also think it is worth mentioning that Menocal is a class act. Menocal started working with CSE in the Summer of 2005, when I was interning with the company. From the day I met him, he was friendly and always carried a smile around the office. It is nice to see someone like that having success in the sports agent industry at a young age.
