Alex’s $$$ Rodfather
TEAM PLAYER:Alex Rodriguez “loves being a Yankee,” says Buffett .
Days after contract talks broke off with the Yankees, a distraught andhumbled Alex Rodriguez took theadvice of hispal, billionaire investor Warren Buffett, on how to get backinto the team’s good graces: Kick his agent to the curb.
After speaking with Buffett, and then using twoGoldman Sachs money men as go-betweens, the slugger, hat inhand and without agent Scott Boras, flew to Tampa last week to meet with Yankeesbosses Hank and HalSteinbrenner, TheWall Street Journal reported.
“I don’t know why, maybe he was shy aboutcalling back,” Hank Steinbrennertold The Post, when asked whyRodriguez did not approach the team directly. “There were mistakes made by his agent.”
Facing public backlash for thumbing his nose at previ ous Yankees offers, thethird baseman dialed hisfinancier friend in late October to figure out how he could re-enter talks with his old team, according to the Journal.
Buffet told him to approach the team without his contentious agent.
“A-Rod really loves being a Yankee,” the investor guru told the Journal, declining to comment further on his conversation with the slugger.
Rodriguez and Buffett, an avid baseball fan, have been friends for years. The two met when the slugger flew out to Omaha to meet with the financial whiz. Since then, they’ve met socially for years, and an autographed A-Rod jersey reportedly hangs in Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway headquarters.
After speaking with Buffett, Rodriguez reached out to the Yankees through another friend, Goldman Sachs executive John Mallory, who oversees the Steinbrenners’ wealth management account.
Mallory called Goldman partner Gerry Cardinale, head of media and telecommunications investments, who has known the Steinbrenner clan since 2001, when the firm invested in the YES network.
Cardinale told Yankees president Randy Levine of Rodriguez’s remorse over the contract talks collapsing, according to the Journal.
“He’s genuine,” Cardinale reportedly told Levine. “I think you guys should hear him out.”
Rodriguez is close to signing a 10-year deal worth $275 million that would include incentives if he breaks disgraced slugger Barry Bonds’ home run record. He’s also negotiating a possible revenue-sharing deal that could push his contract beyond $300 million.
It’s believed the best offer Rodriguez had before surfacing in Tampa to meet with the Steinbrenner family was for eight years and $225 million.