License to Deal: A Season on the Run with a Maverick Baseball Agent by Jerry Crasnick

Product Details

Synopsis

The movie Jerry Maguire and HBO series Arli$$ barely skimmed the surface. Now the true inside story of the sports agent business is exposed as never before.

During baseball's evolution from national pastime to a $3.6 billion business, the game's agents have played a pivotal role in driving and (some might say) ruining the sport. In a world of unchecked egos and minimal regulation, client-stealing and financial inducements have become commonplace, leading many to label the field a cesspool, devoid of loyalties and filled with predators.

Matt Sosnick entered these shark-infested waters in 1997, leaving a job as CEO of a San Francisco high-tech company to represent ballplayers--and hoping to do so while keeping his romantic love of baseball and his integrity intact. License to Deal follows Sosnick as he deals with his up-and-coming clients (his most famous is the 2003 rookie-of-the-year pitching sensation Dontrelle Willis). We become privy to never-before-disclosed stories behind the rise of baseball's most powerful agent, Scott Boras. And we get a novel perspective on the art of the deal and the economics of baseball.

By one of baseball's most respected sportswriters, who is now ESPN.com's lead Insider baseball reporter, License to Deal, like Michael Lewis's bestselling Moneyball, will provide fuel for many a heated baseball discussion.

Publishers Weekly

Matt Sosnick co-runs a small California agency representing nine major league baseball players, including All-Star pitcher Dontrelle Willis. Crasnick, a baseball writer for ESPN.com, spent months at Sosnick's side, watching him work with clients and try to sign up new prospects. This in-depth profile is especially good at capturing the earnest but earthy young agent's contradictions: he feels so strongly about integrity that he can complain that a competitor's luring away of a player "doesn't add to the goodness or the kindness of the world," yet he plots pragmatically to pry loose some talent for his own roster. The story loses some focus when Crasnick elects to broaden the perspective, abandoning Sosnick and his players to check out the competition, including super-agent Scott Boras. But these outside views prove helpful, rounding out Sosnick's portrait to show the less flattering light in which others see him. The success of Michael Lewis's Moneyball has aroused interest in the behind-the-scenes financial maneuvers that decide who gets to play, and while this sympathetic look at the frequently maligned role of the agent can't quite match its predecessor's vitality, it should still attract moderate attention. Photos. Agent, David Black. (June) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Biography

JERRY CRASNICK is one of America's top sportswriters. He has worked for the Cincinnati Post, the Denver Post, Bloomberg News, The Sporting News, Sport magazine, and Baseball America, and is a frequent guest on ESPN radio. He is currently ESPN.com's lead Insider baseball reporter. He lives in Langhorne, Pennsylvania.