A-Rod, Yankees and Warren Buffet

I'm very pleased about the outcome of the A-Rod - Yankees drama. In the end, I think the Yankees handled the situation well and Alex, after seeking wise counsel from tycoon Warren Buffet, decided to reign in his agent Scott Boras. The Yankees are the right fit for A-Rod, and visa-versa. As to the $275 million contract I have two reactions. My inner progressive says that it's somewhat sick that we would be willing to pay someone $27 million dollars a year to hit a white ball. How many lives could be saved with that money? However, my inner capitalist (and Yankee fan) says that business is business and the free market has the right to place value where it wants.

In the end it's interesting drama and great for the Yankees and A-Rod. I guess there still is 'safety in a multitude of counselors'.

Mike Lupica from the New York Daily News reports:

Warren Buffet to A-Rod: Dial Yankees

Alex Rodriguez did not just talk to friends in Miami about coming back to the Yankees. And he did not just talk to a few Wall Street guys as he began the process of getting a better deal for himself than his agent, Scott Boras, was ever going to get him anywhere else.

A-Rod even talked to Warren Buffett.

It's exactly as we started to tell you Friday: Last week the once and future Yankee third baseman made a phone call to Buffett at the billionaire investor's Berkshire Hathaway office in Omaha, the two of them having struck up a friendly relationship over the past couple of years. A-Rod explained to Buffett how distressed he was at the way things had ended for him with the Yankees. He talked about how his own free agency - and really, his own agent - had somehow gotten out in front of him.

And Buffett, who makes Scott Boras look like a bellhop when it comes it business, told him to do exactly what he ended up doing - call the Yankees himself.

There was nothing earth-shattering about what Buffett told him, which is that he better get on the phone himself with the Steinbrenners and do it fast. But maybe Warren Buffett, sitting out there in Omaha, a genius of business and common sense and even a great card player - bridge - had figured out something by then that A-Rod's agent should have figured out from the jump:

That the New York Yankees were always going to make the best offer to this player, even when they were bidding against themselves.