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Dice game is too costly: Team needs to stand firm (Tony Massarotti - The Boston Herald)
December 13, 2006 4:07 PM
Copyright The Boston Herald
Wednesday, December 13, 2006 - Updated: 01:01 AM EST
When they stop groveling, when they stop running around like some three-sport captain desperate for a prom date, the Red Sox [team stats] need to put their foot down. They need to stand up to Daisuke Matsuzaka and Scott Boras, and they need to tell them in no uncertain terms:
Either Matsuzaka pitches for the Sox next season, at a reasonable price, or he can straighten his seatback and put his tray table in the upright and locked position.
It’s either Hello, Boston …
Or Sayonara, Daisuke.
Fifteen million a year? Please. If Matsuzaka and Boras are still asking for that today, the Sox have one choice and one choice only. They should help Matsuzaka pack his bags, call him a cab, then drop him off on the street corner before they board owner John Henry’s private jet back to Boston. Matsuzaka can go back to Japan, back to the Seibu Lions, who paid him roughly $2.75 million last year to dominate a second-rate league.
Somehow, somewhere along the line, a funny thing happened in these negotiations between Matsuzaka and the Red Sox: the tail started wagging the dog, the Red Sox started acting like the the ones that had something to prove. Boras is a brilliant negotiator and a master at leverage, and the Red Sox somehow came to believe that it was their responsibility to convince Matsuzaka to pitch for them.
The truth, of course, is that Matsuzaka is the one who has yet to prove a damn thing; if he goes back to Japan, it will be at least another year until he proves anything at all. For all that has been said during these “negotiations” regarding Japanese codes like honor and tradition, the irony is that Matsuzaka has spit in the face of Major League Baseball and the Red Sox.
Boras may be in the middle of these negotiations, after all, but he works for Matsuzaka.
Seriously: At what point does this madness stop? At what point does a team just say no to someone who has never thrown a pitch in the major leagues, yet demands to be paid as if he were a young Pedro Martinez?
For the complete article see the link below.
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Posted at 4:07 PM