What Is This Thing You Call Emotion?

In the aftermath of the tragic Nick Adenhart death, the Angels held a press conference to try and move on. During the press conference, super agent Scott Boras spoke about his client and then did something that confused me: he broke down and cried.

It makes perfect sense for a man to cry after the senseless death of a 22 year old with so much promise, but I've just never seen Boras as human before. Maybe this tragedy portends a newer, softer, more caring Boras! Okay, I won't get ahead of myself.

I'm sure Boras cried naturally and was honestly broken up about the accident, but you'll forgive me if I'm a bit out of sorts with his display of compassion. This is an agent who has been described as the baseball anti-christ (Happy Easter!)

His hard-nosed negotiations have destroyed baseball teams and spawned countless jokes about his ruthlessness. It's even to the point where certain teams will not draft talented players due to the fact they are a Boras client.

The most infamous deal out of many is when Boras got Rangers owner Tom Hicks to bid against himself to sign A-Rod to the most ridiculous deal (over $250 million) ever heard of in baseball. For years, the Rangers refused to have anything to do with a Boras client.

Boras isn't any more evil than the baseball owners. Players love his ability to get them money, but he has proven that money is valued above all else which doesn't sit well with fans like me. There's just something unsettling about taking Johnnny Damon from the Red Sox and signing him to the Yankees. I think Boras has devolved Mark Teixeira's reputation to that of a simple mercienary after moving him from Texas to the Braves and Angels before finally signing yet another huge deal with the Yankees.

Fans like me want baseball to be a bit more than roving pen of free-agents who will all inevitably sign with the Yankees. The financial set up makes this dream seem impossible and Boras just reminds me of the failed state every time he rips a player from a team and sends him to a big market for the money.

Yet I just saw that Boras is human and I'm flummoxed. But happy. Maybe things will change one day.