* First off, I remember that time
very well (full disclosure: I am a Yankee fan!) and where I was when I heard
that A-Rod was going to be a Yankee (I was at a New Jersey Devils game.) And
you captured the details of those weeks, even mentioning the "We got
him" announcement about Saddam Hussein (I remember a Red Sox fan friend
joking that they thought the announcement was about A-Rod!) What in
particular gave you the idea to do "The Deal"?
My brother and I are
big Red Sox fans and, as such, we were well aware of the fact that A-Rod had
been - for a brief moment in time - a Red Sox. Back then, it was so devastating
for Red Sox nation to lose out on the best and most marketable player in
the league that it almost felt like the second coming of the Babe Ruth trade.
It really did feel like fate. We wanted to capture that and let the irony of
the situation speak for itself.
* What do you think would have
happened if the A-Rod trade to the Boston Red Sox had gone through? Would the
Red Sox have still won their rings? Would A-Rod have become a Manny
Ramirez-esque weird but not despised character in Boston?
Both Theo Epstein and
Jed Hoyer said that if hindsight wasn't 20/20 they would have done the deal
again. Alex Rodriguez was the face of baseball and by far the best player in a
keystone position to boot. I think they certainly would have won a World
Championship with him. Three championships? I don't know. But, they would
have been a really, really good if not better team with Alex in his prime
and he would have been the face of the Red Sox revival. As for Manny, I'm
not sure anyone can or will approach the strange place he holds in Boston fans'
hearts.
* Ten years later, I still don't
understand why the Red Sox just didn't ask for the Rangers to pay a portion of
A-Rod's salary, something that the Yankees got from them. Was that ever
discussed in their negotiations?
Yes. But, Manny
Ramirez and his gigantic contract were headed to the Rangers so
they didn't want to eat any of Alex's contract if they had to take on
Manny's deal. Soriano wasn't being paid a tenth of what Manny was at the time
so the Rangers had to take on some of the remaining money from Rodriguez's
contract in order to facilitate the trade with the Yankees. In essence,
taking Manny Ramirez's contract was the financial relief given to the
Red Sox by the Rangers much in the same way paying down Alex's deal was to the
Yankees.
* I have already heard why you
didn't want to interview A-Rod for the show, but what about Scott Boras? It
seemed to me that having some voice from the A-Rod camp would have added more
to the documentary. Or even Joe Torre or somebody else from the Yankee camp
besides Brian Cashman. Any reason that didn't happen?
They didn't truly have
any insight into it. Scott Boras wasn't involved at any level with Alex
going to the Red Sox. It's important to note that Alex did it all himself. He
set up all the meetings and did the negotiating himself. Boras just wasn't in
the loop. When it came to the Yankees, the whole deal was done really
secretively. Not even Steinbrenner knew about it until a week before it went
down. It was entirely Cashman and Hart. Boras and Torre, like Steinbrenner,
weren't key players.
* I wish "The Deal" had been
longer, to explore questions like what Manny Ramirez and Nomar Garciaparra were
thinking when all of the trade talk was swirling around. For example, did they
forgive Kevin Millar for saying he'd rather have A-Rod as a
teammate? Another thing I wish you had had the time to explore more was
the relationship with Derek Jeter. I remember him mumbling in a monotone when
introducing A-Rod at the press conference, with a look on his face then like he
would rather be anywhere else! Anyhow, did you try to interview any of these
people, or just not have the running space to talk to them?
This is a really
complex story, but we always knew we wanted to end it with Alex signing
with the Yankees and keep it within the confines of
the off-season. We felt it was more ironic that way and we didn't
have to flesh out any of the later controversy since Alex has done a good job
of keeping that in the papers all his own.
That said, there were
definitely stories we wish we could've included in the piece. One such
story was that when Brian Cashman learned about the Boone injury he
was on vacation on the island of Anguilla at this very small resort and
coincidentally, staying at the same exact place, at the same exact time, was
the New York Times baseball reporter, Tyler Kepner. So, the whole time Cashman
is trying to keep a poker face and not let Kepner know that they have a serious
problem at third base.
You can watch "The Deal" for yourself here.
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