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I realize that Marchman is in training to be the new Bob Klapisch, but his stuff here about Boras defies all logic. Read on at your own peril:
Another New York mess
The Mets are fantastically embarrassing. On Thursday the team convened a conference call with assistant general manager John Ricco to proclaim that their ace center fielder, Carlos Beltran, had undergone knee surgery without their permission, and that they were going to... not do anything about it. Within hours, the player was flatly stating that he had talked to general manager Omar Minaya about the procedure and had been wished well. Beltran's agent, Scott Boras, went one better and suggested not only that he received consent from both Minaya and chief operating officer Jeff Wilpon before the operation, but that Beltran's surgeon had been in touch with the Mets' physician and head trainer. According to Boras, he only heard objections from Mets brass the next day, while the surgery was ongoing.
Fans who think Boras is the devil would, believe me, think differently after spending an hour talking baseball with him. (The next best thing would be to read this terrific profile of the man.) So far as I've ever been able to figure, the whole secret to his success is his integrity; the man just doesn't outright lie, which oddly makes it easier to play on greed and desire. He'll arrange facts in ways that lead people to the conclusions he wants to draw, and let people infer what they want from things he isn't actually saying, but this is what lawyers do. On issues of fact there might not be anyone more trustworthy in the sport. If he says he got consent, he did.
Either the Mets didn't realize that they'd given it, or they did realize that they'd done so and then basically changed their minds. It's hard to tell which of the two possibilities would reflect more badly on them, but I'd go with the second. Either way, they've provoked a war with their best player, essentially challenging his honor, on the basis of what was at best a mistake. They've also made themselves look utterly impotent, exposed that the team functionally doesn't have a general manager, and drawn attention to an incredibly sketchy history of treating injuries. The best of it is that given the Willie Randolph firing, a shirtless V.P. challenging minor leaguers to a battle royal, the Adam Rubin Incident, the Ryan Church Incident, Oliver Perez generally, etc., this may not be one of the top five Mets fiascoes of the past 18 months.
On the field, what matters is that Beltran is going to miss at least a month and maybe a lot more, and that there's no assurance that he's going to return from surgery the same player he was, especially defensively. Of course, knowing that their best player is a center fielder who's about to turn 33 and has a long history of leg and knee injuries, the Mets signed a statuesque left fielder to an expensive contract, meaning not only that Beltran is locked into center but that he'll have extra responsibilities there. The season may not be dead, but they're smiling in Philadelphia, Atlanta and Miami.
I recommend the White Sox to grieving Mets fans. They have the same sort of inferiority complex that the Mets do, but are run by much more competent and entertaining people. The Nationals are also a good alternative, since New Yorkers can get down to Washington to catch games without much trouble.
---- OK, he doesn't lie, he just twists words to make people think what he wants them to think? And THAT'S Marchman's definition of integrity?
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