Million Dollar Arm

by J. B. Bernstein

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  TO RINKU AND DINESH

  * * *

  As grateful as you are for what Million Dollar Arm brought to your lives, know that you have given me so much more

  PROLOGUE

  Their crisp white Million Dollar Arm uniforms gleaming in the bright Arizona sun, Rinku and Dinesh took the field. They had spent the last hour warming up inside the training facility, throwing 90-mile-per-hour fastballs that hit the catcher’s mitt with lots of mustard and a satisfying pop. They were locked in and ready to go. About to face a crowd of pro scouts, the two were far from finished projects, but to look at them, you’d never guess that just a year before, they had never touched a baseball. Hell, a year ago, they didn’t even know what a baseball was.

  These two guys, who hailed from the kind of small, rural Indian villages where many people didn’t have indoor plumbing, running electricity, or opportunities for work, found themselves in Tempe that early-November morning to compete for a spot in the bigs. The experiment began a year earlier with a zany idea to canvass India, where baseball is virtually unknown, in search of raw pitching talent. Rinku and Dinesh were the winners of the nationwide contest and reality TV show. Now they were trying to make history as the first natives of India to become pro athletes in the United States.

  The training facility where we were holding the tryout, housed in an ordinary office park adjacent to a strip mall, didn’t exactly look like the stuff of Cooperstown. But it was one of the top facilities in Arizona. Several office suites had been combined to create a beautiful, modern space with cold tubs for ice baths, workout equipment, an indoor pitching mound, and the like. Out the back door and across a parking lot was a strip of Astroturf with a pitching mound and pitching cage specifically designed for pitchers and hitters to train.

  Behind home plate stood thirty stony-faced scouts. It was unbelievable, even surreal, how many scouts had turned out to see if Rinku and Dinesh could throw. These travel-hardened vets of the sport, who will look under any and every rock for the next megastar, couldn’t stay away from our tryout, no matter how ridiculous a long shot it was.

  The scouts weren’t the only ones eager to discover whether baseball can be learned well enough in a year to play in the pros. A huge crowd of media—including ESPN, USA Today, and local reporters and TV crews—had assembled, which was very atypical. No one ever covers baseball tryouts. Even a crazy, once-in-a-generation high school recruit is a tough sell to an editor. But two guys who, if they didn’t do the impossible and land a spot on a baseball team, would be sent back to a life of hardship, at least by American standards? Well, that was newsworthy. Rinku’s and Dinesh’s tryout had all the melodrama and nail-biting potential heartbreak that make for an irresistible sports story.

  When the time came to bring out Rinku and Dinesh, their pitching had been great, which wasn’t always the case. While both had big-league potential, their lightning-quick education meant that their deliveries could be erratic. Some days were good, some days not so much. We wanted them to warm up inside so that they would come out looking sharp. And, thank God, today their mechanics were laser-focused.

  When Rinku; Dinesh; their pitching coach, Tom House; talent scout and trainer Ray Poitevint; my business partners Ash Vasudevan and Will Chang; and I walked out of the building in one badass line, it was like a scene from Reservoir Dogs. (Well, maybe more like the scene from Swingers where they imitate Reservoir Dogs.) As Coach House started to introduce the boys, smiling and thanking everyone for coming out to see this miracle of baseball, our mini-entourage was buzzing with nerves. I was so pumped; I couldn’t wait for them to get out on the mound. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that Rinku and Dinesh were going to nail this thing.

  Dinesh was up first. The scouts, three deep, jostled one another and shoved their radar guns into place. (Scouts all bring their own guns, since they don’t trust anyone.) Dozens of barrels pointed at Dinesh as he trotted out to the mound.

  I’d never been more excited about anything in my life—and as a pro sports agent who had been in the business for more than twenty years, it took a lot to get me excited. I had seen and done just about everything: driven expensive cars, flown on private jets, partied at the hottest nightclubs, dated the prettiest girls, and watched the Super Bowl from the sidelines. But this was different. If Rinku and Dinesh showed the scouts the best they could do, it would change the courses of their lives and their families’ lives forever. It would also vindicate me after most of the sports community told me I was an idiot when I first came up with the idea.

  I felt great. Success was assured. There wasn’t a hint that anything could go wrong—until someone pulled back the tarp that had been covering the mound. Suddenly, like a train wreck unfurling in slow motion, the entire situation went south. The mound, sandy, crumbling, and uneven, was totally messed up.

  “Coach, mound no good,” Dinesh said.

  The scouts, their guns raised in the air, waited. There was no time.

  “You gotta go,” Coach House whispered loudly. “Just go!”

  And just like when the guys left their villages back in India for a foreign land and a crazy dream, Dinesh took a major-league leap of faith, stepped up to the mound, and wound up for his first pitch.

  CHAPTER 1

  “J.B., man, you got to figure out a way to get me outta here.”

  The television commercial that was supposed to only take six hours was already veering north of eight, and my client, a sports superstar, was starting to lose it. I knew how this was going to go in the first hour of the LA shoot, when the director dragged out the schedule as if he were Martin Scorsese, so that by lunchtime, the line producer was already hinting that they might need my client for another half hour or so. The half hour came and went, and now my client was mad at me: he wanted me to call it a day. But what was I going to do? Pull the plug on a half-finished commercial? Even if that were doable, I couldn’t afford to ruin my relationship with the massive sports marketing conglomerate over an extra hour of my client’s time. And I couldn’t make my client look like a bad guy who was sick of participating in this big payday.

  So I started doing what I do best: spinning. I had to take the player’s mind off the clock. First stop, the makeup truck. Makeup girls are always super-nice and have great stories about other celebrities. We killed a half hour listening to them dish on a big athlete who wouldn’t let them put powder on his face. While the girls were talking, I had Mexican food from a great restaurant I knew in LA delivered to the set. He loved Mexican and couldn’t get this kind of quality back home, so that provided another short diversion. Then I used my fail-proof method of discussing future business deals that would involve this athlete. I was like the storyteller in One Thousand and One Nights, improvising contractual issues and talking strategy until the director finally said it was a wrap, sparing my professional life.

  I was still spinning in the car on my way back to the airport—but not to my client, who was already on his way to another part of the country. I pounded the cell phone, chasing deals. I heard that Gillette was looking for a name athlete to star in an ad campaign for a new razor and was pushing my way in to pitch. I called a stadium merchandiser to check up on the availability of one of my client’s shirts.

  The door of the airplane back to San Francisco closed, and the announcement was made to shut off all electronic devices, when my cell rang. I answered it; I al
ways answer the phone. It was an exec I had been trying to reach for a month finally getting back to me. It was too late to get off the plane, so I started talking. Fast.

  “Sir, please turn off your cell,” the flight attendant said.

  I held up my finger and got right to the point with the exec.

  “Sir.”

  I didn’t give the exec time to respond, since I wouldn’t have time to respond to his response, but instead quickly segued into setting up a meeting with his secretary to talk more.

  “Sir!”

  He said yes—all I needed; all I ever needed—and I hung up right before air marshals came to escort me off the plane.

  After touching down in San Francisco, I headed straight home to my 2,500-square-foot loft with thirty-foot floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the ballpark, only three blocks away. That’s where I was headed that evening. I had to dress quickly in order to get to the stadium three hours before the Giants game for the necessary schmooze time. I changed into a long-sleeved V-neck Armani shirt, Ralph Lauren Black Label jeans, and a Gucci belt before opening up the box where I kept my watch collection. Each of the thirty timepieces, lined up as neatly as soldiers, represented a big milestone in my career. I had bought the Patek Philippe, Rolex, Audemars Piguet, and Breitling with parts of commissions I had earned—the reward I gave myself for doing well. I strapped on my Vacheron Constantin skeleton watch, its delicate wheels and gears exposed in a face devoid of any plate or bridges. That was the reward for the trading card deal I did with Barry Bonds, the largest ever for a player at the time. It was made possible because I was the only agent in the history of Major League Baseball to take a client out of the MLB Players Association group licensing agreement. I dropped a lot on that watch.

  I left the car in my garage and opted to walk to the stadium in the cool late-afternoon air. Back when I lived in San Diego and LA in the midnineties, I had been a car fanatic who thought nothing of shelling out $700 a month in gas to run a sweet ’63 Corvette convertible. Since then, I had lost the bug and was now satisfied with a souped-up Mustang convertible.

  With a badge that gave me access to almost anywhere in AT&T Park, I started by paying a visit to the Giants players and coaches during warm-ups. After some chitchat, I went over to the opposing team while it took batting practice in the cage. Then it was over to the zone where the media congregate. I kidded around with other agents and their players. Once the field cleared before the game started, I went to the underbelly of the stadium to schmooze with the people who ran the stadium merchandise, food, and beverage sales. Then it was up to work the rooms of the luxury suites that housed sponsors. As an agent, I always had to be in the mix.

  Baseball is a long season, and even the most diehard fans don’t stay to the bitter end of every game. Antsy by the seventh inning, I went down to the tunnel that connects the dugouts to the locker rooms, where girls hang out hoping to meet athletes. By now the night had turned from professional to personal. AT&T Park gets pretty cold no matter the time of year, so any girl dolled up in a miniskirt or other outfit that showed a lot of skin was clearly not there for the game. I approached a petite brunette in a tank top, short shorts, and heels: “My name is J.B. What’s yours?”

  I could tell in three seconds if a girl was interested. If she didn’t make eye contact but instead continued to look around the room while I talked, then it was a no. Unlike guys who have to steel themselves to go up to a girl and then feel suicidal if rejected, “No” didn’t affect me too much. It was just, who’s next?

  The brunette kept her eyes on mine while telling me her name. After a minute of small talk, she lightly brushed her hand against my shoulder as she laughed, signaling that the door was wide open. We were back at my place within a half hour. I hadn’t even bought her a drink.

  By two in the morning, unable to lie in bed anymore, I went to the living room and flipped on ESPN’s Sports­Center. The brunette found me with my head in my laptop, firing off work emails.

  “Do you want me out of here?” she asked.

  “No. Why?”

  “You seem restless.”

  “I’m just not tired.”

  I called her a cab, and she took off. I didn’t care who was sleeping in my bed; business came first. If I was a jerk, then being a jerk was my dream.

  There are two kinds of sports agents: those who handle the playing contracts with an athlete’s team, and the marketing agents who handle everything else. There was never any question about which kind of agent I wanted to be. I saw playing contracts as a game of diminishing returns. The playing contract is earned by the player, who with time naturally becomes less and less valuable. But with marketing, there was no limit to how much off-field revenue I could generate for a guy through endorsements, TV commercials, personal appearances, memorabilia sales, and licensing everything from mugs to video games. It was on me alone to make the deals, and I took pride in creating those opportunities.

  I worked at the Upper Deck Company, one of the biggest trading card and sports memorabilia companies, for about four years. I started as a manager of business development and then was the director of marketing and product development for Upper Deck Authenticated, their memorabilia subsidiary. So in 1994, after I left Upper Deck and was working as an independent sports consultant to Major League Soccer in creating its licensing program for the teams and players, I got a call from Barry Sanders of the Detroit Lions. In my opinion, he is the best running back ever to play pro football (despite his being only third on the career yardage list), and he asked me if I would help him with his marketing. That call inspired me to take the plunge and start my own sports marketing company. Twelve years later, in a business I built from the ground up, I represented all Hall of Famers. In addition to Barry Sanders, there was Dallas Cowboys halfback Emmitt Smith, the number one running back on the career yardage list, and Curtis Martin of the New England Patriots and then the New York Jets, who is number four. (The second best in NFL history, the Chicago Bears’ Walter Payton, was nearly retired when I started my career.) I also represented the Giants’ Barry Bonds, who I believe is the greatest baseball player of all time.

  My roster set me apart from other boutique agents, who typically work either with a bunch of small clients or one big client. It was rare to find a boutique business like mine, where all four clients are among the greatest that ever played. And I knew exactly to what I could credit my success: it wasn’t that I was smarter or more connected than the other guys; it was that I took business seriously.

  When I was a kid, my family used to say that my younger sister Stacey was going to try to save the world, and “J.B. is going to try to buy it.” They weren’t far off. Here I was, almost forty years old, and nearly every person in my circle was through business. Why not? That was my source of pride and joy. I went out only if it was a networking opportunity; otherwise it was a waste of time. I didn’t yearn to share my day’s experience with someone who understood me for me. The only other piece that completed me was money.

  I devoted 100 percent of my time to being an agent, which, because I require so little sleep, meant about twenty-two hours a day. My need for only one or two hours a night was the single biggest advantage in anything I had ever done, from high school to my first job as an assistant account executive on Procter & Gamble accounts at Grey Advertising. It was a purely natural gift; even as a little baby, I didn’t require sleep. My dad, Larry, a toy industry executive, would drive me around our neighborhood of Huntington, Long Island, at all hours of the night in a futile attempt to knock me out. He and my mother, Carol, gave up trying to get me to go to bed after my maternal grandmother bought me a little black-and-white TV set with three channels and a headphone plug that had only one earpiece.

  Grandma Ivy was a kindred spirit who stayed up late under the guise of cleaning and cooking (her two methods of currency were guilt and food), while my grandfather Abe was asleep every night at eight o’clock. When I stayed at her house in Flushing, Queens,
which was often, I would come out at three in the morning to find her scrubbing the floors and eating a whole Entenmann’s coffee cake. “It’s not cut, even,” she said before taking another chunk off the cake.

  As a kid, I watched the TV set my grandma had gotten me—using the earpiece, so as not to disturb anyone—until Johnny Carson was over and the station literally went off the air. (I became deaf in my right ear from all the years of listening with the earpiece; if someone is talking on my right side, I can’t hear what the hell they are saying.) Then I read the encyclopedia.

  It wasn’t insomnia; I just wasn’t tired. Even as an adult, I always needed something else to fill my time while wide awake in the middle of the night. Instead of indulging in diversions to kill time, like eating Domino’s pizza and playing Call of Duty, I decided to fill my head with the components of business ideas that could help my career. I read business journals from all around the world and analyzed trends in my field. I taped every show on prime-time TV—even ones that I had absolutely no interest in watching, like Desperate Housewives—so that I could see the commercials and extrapolate everything I needed to know about which brands were advertising and who they were marketing to. (I still do.) That way, if one of my athletes was asked to make a cameo on it, I could decide if it made sense.

  With my single-minded devotion to work, no detail was too small if it might affect one of my clients. I saw my job as setting up the right deal and making sure that everything went the way it was set up. If Barry Sanders was starring in a Pepsi commercial, I not only negotiated the deal but also read the script, made his flight and hotel reservations, double-checked that his car arrived at the airport, and stocked the minifridge in his hotel room with his favorite drinks and fresh fruit. When Emmitt Smith was in a long-distance phone service commercial alongside ALF, the alien puppet star of the popular 1980s TV sitcom about a crash-landed extraterrestrial living with a suburban family, I went out in advance to talk to the puppeteer who operated the character. It had been a tough deal selling Emmitt on a national ad campaign that required him to appear with a puppet. The last thing I needed was for ALF to make him uncomfortable. “It’s weird enough that Emmitt is this football god talking to a doll,” I said to the puppeteer. “I don’t want any bizarre stuff.”