I went out as a free agent in Boston and had a great year and I priced myself out of there market, at the time.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I became a real free market fanatic. I'm probably less so now than even two or three years ago.
I've got to play free agency out, and I've got to look at all of my options.
You sweat out the free agent thing in November then you make the trades in December. Then you struggle to sign the guys left in January and in February I get down to sewing all the new numbers on the uniforms.
While I was in high school, I started working professionally and got an agent.
I am dead set against free agency. It can ruin baseball.
I came into the game when I broke into the major leagues, the minimum salary was seven thousand dollars, and I'd have to go home in the wintertime and get a job.
I've been very lucky. I wanted to be an actress, but I didn't really have the drive to sell myself. Fortunately I had a terrific agent in New York who kept me going from job to job.
I got an offer in 1992 to buy a major-league team. I turned down the offer because I don't want my love of the game to involve business.
My job, when it comes to free agency, trades, is not to pick players, but support the personnel department and the coaching staff. We have to have the financial resources to make things happen and that's my job.
A picture of me as this super affable sales guy gets painted, but in actuality, I'm pretty driven by hard work and love working with teams. What people discount is, I grew up in a very small blue-collar town in Massachusetts and have basically scrapped my way career wise.