Dear Baseball Friends and Fans:
For a closer, more informative look into the baseball agent business, I'd strongly encourage you to pick up a copy of Jerry Crasnick's new book, License to Deal: A Season on the Run with a Maverick Baseball Agent. Excerpts have recently appeared on the Baseball Americawebsite, as well as on ESPN.com.
Crasnick (ESPN.com Baseball Insider) is in his second decade of baseball reporting and analysis, and has written columns for the Sporting Newsand Baseball America. Based in large part on the real-life experiences of one baseball agent, the book dives into that agent's world, and offers readers a rather rare opportunity to better understand the ups and downs that agents, players, parents, and Major League clubs confront in dealing with each other. Crasnick's effort provides details and insights---many eye-opening---which few outside of the game ever get the chance to read about.
Having had a son go through the entire draft process in the last couple years (including the time-consuming, nerve-wracking, advisor/agent-hiring part!), I was glad to share some of my thoughts with Jerry as he was researching and writing the book. He interviewed dozens of folks, a Who's Who of the baseball world, from major leaguers to minor leaguers, from executives to other agents, from scouts to parents. In the end, Crasnick did a great job of bringing readers into the inner workings, the "wheeling and dealing", of the baseball agent business...the good and the not-so-good.
If you're a parent interested in educating yourself more about this crazy process, or just a diehard fan wanting to catch up on the inside scoop, do yourself a favor and get the book. Some harsh language in the book, some stories shared which are a little sleazy, so be prepared...the book does give the reader a dose of reality!
Wally Lubanski
Collegeville, PA
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