During the opening credits of Jerry Maguire, the now-classic 1996 film about sports super agents, Tom Cruise who plays the title character, is sitting on a public bus -- which in turn is sitting in the pouring rain. Clear as day, however, director Cameron Crowe inserts a voice-over from an actual sports talk radio show "...but you're the reason that salaries are so high in the first place..." The scene is a metaphor for Jerry's current situation: he has just walked out on his big-time sports agent job and is wondering if he really wants to continue along this line of work in the future.
Yep. It was an uncredited, unpaid, unknowingly at the time brush with fame. After all, Jerry Macguire would go on to be nominated at that year's Academy Awards for Best Picture (losing out to The English Patient, a horribly boring movie if there ever was such a thing). It would also make a star of Cuba Gooding Jr., who won Best Supporting Actor, for his portrayal of a star NFL wide receiver, who becomes Jerry's only client and has a penchant for screaming another phrase -- far more famous than mine -- "Show me the money!"
It was quite the rush hearing my voice on the screen of a big-time hollywood movie. It's just too bad, I hadn't met Scott Boras back then. Who knows how much money I might have made for the rights to my comment (after all, that line was the crux for the entire movie, you see)?
Anyway, more on Boras in just a moment. But in explaining how any of this ever came to be, I was doing an interview on the powerhouse Mighty 690 radio station with a famous super agent of that era, Leigh Steinberg, whom the movie was loosely based on. And I asked him about how he could posssibly live with his conscious while demanding all of these out-of-the-world salaries for his clients. Crowe, the director who is from San Diego, was listening at the time and wanted to pull the clip for his film.
One thing led to another, the station said he could use the clip (without my knowledge, by the way), and eventually there I was -- well, my voice, anyway -- saved forever on film in one of the better sports-themed movies of all time. Unpaid, mind you, but in the movie nonetheless.
Fast forward now to Wednesday, two days ago. Tony Gwynn, Jr. and I are doing our radio show down at the Manchester Grand Hyatt during this year's baseball Winter Meetings. One of our top promotions people, who works in sports, Rich Herrera, tells us that we might be getting Scott Boras on the show that day. "Sure, Rich....whatever." I figured we were just as likely to get Tom Cruise on.
At precisely 5 p.m., I was getting up to leave, the thought of Boras on the show as far away from my mind as anything could be. I had a committment to announce a San Diego State women's basketball game that night, and I had to leave the show an hour early. But as I was getting ready to go, our Program Director, Adam Klug, told me were actually about have Boras come on. I could stay around and do the interview if I wanted to.
Well, then I'd just have to drive a little faster to the basketball game, because I wasn't going to miss this. And then he came over and sat down, and the commercials finished playing, and Boras came on the show. Talk about another rush! Tony and I were interviewing the most powerful man in all of baseball, a man who just this week alone, negotiated contracts for Stephen Strasburg, Gerrit Cole and Anthony Rendon totalling $814 million. Assuming Boras makes the standard 5% rate for an agent (he actually makes a tick more, from what I'm told), he earned $40.5 million himself on those contracts alone.
It was all a bit intimidating, I must admit. (Maybe they could bring Tom Cruise over?). But Tony and I did our thing, asked our questions, and Boras couldn't have been nicer in answering them. (By the way, if you missed the interview, you can find the entire thing elsewhere on this page). We asked about the high salaries, we asked about Boras and his dealings with the Padres, we asked about how far his business in general and he in particular has come, and we asked everything else we could think of on a moment's notice.
At the end, Boras himself was gracious in thanking Tony and the Gwynn family for all they had done for Strasburg when Tony's dad, the famous Mr. Padre, had coached Strasburg at San Diego State. It actually was quite touching. Then the most powerful man in baseball (in all of sports?) was on his way, off to negotiate the next mega deal (in fact, news of Rendon's signing with the Angels came down about an hour or so after he left us).
Meanwhile, I sat there for just a moment -- a bit start-struck and bit in awe of the man. I wondered something. What if Scott Boras represented me? And did so in 1996. How many mega-millions could he have gotten me for Jerry Maguire? Certainly he could have showed me the money.