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Johnny Damon’s Move to New York; Was it Theo’s Ego or Boras’s Lie?

We miss the long hair Jesus look, do you?Seth Mnookin is coming out with a book tomorrow that looks to be a good read: Feeding the Monster : How Money, Smarts, and Nerve Took a Team to the Top.  Today, Mr. Mnookin has realease his last preview of the book by highlighting the negotiation between agent Scott Boras and Theo Epstein over Johnny Damon’s contract [Sneak Peeks: Scott Boras orchestrates Damon’s move to New York].  It is a good look into the negotiation process between GMs and agents.  Tactics used included stalling direct communication, lying about competing offers, using a player’s wishes to remain in a certain city (whether true or false).

Interesting question at the end of the preview: “And how much higher might player salaries go if agents could regularly get the Yankees to bid for Red Sox free agents, and vice versa?”

[tags]johnny damon, damon, yankees, red sox, theo epstein, scott boras[/tags]

By Darren Heitner

Darren Heitner created Sports Agent Blog as a New Year's Resolution on December 31, 2005. Originally titled, "I Want To Be A Sports Agent," the website was founded with the intention of causing Heitner to learn more about the profession that he wanted to join, meet reputable individuals in the space and force himself to stay on top of the latest news and trends.

Heitner now runs Heitner Legal, P.L.L.C., which is a law firm with many practice areas, including sports law and contract law. Heitner has represented numerous athletes and sports agents as legal counsel. He has also served as an Adjunct Professor at Indiana University Bloomington from 2011-2014, where he created and taught a course titled, Sport Agency Management, which included subjects ranging from NCAA regulations to athlete agent certification and the rules governing the profession. Heitner serves as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, where he teaches a Sports Law class that includes case law surrounding athlete agents and the NCAA rules.

3 replies on “Johnny Damon’s Move to New York; Was it Theo’s Ego or Boras’s Lie?”

It was boras’s lie. I think he wanted the bigger commision and knew he had someone he could ‘work with’in Damon. The first thing I noticed from this whole thing was John Henry saying they never came back for our counter offer… knowing that Damon would take only 1 million more from the Sox to stay there, Boras let him sign with the Yankees leading him to believe the Sox said no. This is what I think. Boras was also on the west coast at this crucial time so Ive read and Damon was left with two deadlines. He was hurt and in retaliation signed with the Yankees and leaving the city that loved him. How this works out for everyone involved we won’t know for a while, but Scott Boras is the one that won for sure. Immediately.

On top of that I believe Boras was in cahoots with the Yankees all along and when all of the chaos in the Red Sox front office happened ie: Theo — they all knew they had their window of opportunity and they attacked.

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