Indicted

Two major indictments were handed down in Major League Baseball this past week. The one everyone knows about, Barry Bonds for perjury and obstruction of justice, and super-agent Scott Boras.

The Boras sycophants have been busy putting a positive spin on the Alex Rodriguez mess, saying that Boras still got his client the biggest contract in the history of the sport...again. The problem with that is that he didn't.

And what makes it worse for Boras is how this went down.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Boras was kept out of the loop by his dissatisfied client on the advice of corporate raider and financial wizard Warren Buffett. For those of you who don't know who Buffett is, think of yourself as a defensive coordinator for a high school football team and Bill Belichick comes along and tells you to ignore your head coach when setting up your football strategy. Not a great analogy, granted, but I think you get the idea.

As of June 2006, Fortune Magazine called Buffett the world's second richest man, valued at over $44 billion. According to various sources, in spite of increasing his net worth to an estimated $52 billion, he is believed to be the third richest person behind Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim, and Microsoft mogul Bill Gates.

This man's companies either control, or hold significant stock shares in GEICO, Coca Cola, Anheuser Busch, Wal-Mart, American Express, Nike, Outback Steak House, Dairy Queen, M&T Bank, Wells Fargo, Fruit of the Loom, and Jordan's Furniture. That only scratches the surface of Buffett's holdings.

This investor's advice to A-Rod essentially amounted to, "Boras can't be trusted with your money to get you the best return on investment. Get him out of the loop."

The only positive thing to come out of this for Boras is that, due to his contract to act as A-Rod's agent, he still gets a cut of the deal.

The negative, and this is big - this could hurt the ability of Boras to attract new clients. Other agents competing with Boras to recruit top flight young talent will be able to ask them, "do you want this guy representing you? One of the most respected financial geniuses in the world advised A-Rod to get him out of the negotiating loop for the last contract - essentially told the best player in baseball that this guy was poison to his chances of the highest paying contract in baseball history?"

Let the fall-out begin.