Jeremy Kapstein

From SoSH

Jeremy Kapstein, aka Jerry Kapstein, was the first high-profile player agent in major league history. He is also a former front office executive with the San Diego Padres, and currently serves as Senior Advisor on Baseball Projects for the Boston Red Sox.

1 The Agent
2 The Executive
3 Quotes
4 Trivia
5 References and External Links
6 See Also

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The Agent

Kapstein was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1943. At age 15, he began compiling statistics for Providence College radio voice Chris Clark during basketball game broadcasts. As a high school senior in 1961, he traveled with the team to New York City for the National Invitation Tournament, where the Friars won the championship.

The following year he entered Harvard University, where his love of sports statistics earned him the nickname "Statstein". After graduating in 1965, he earned his law degree at Boston College.

While in college, he began doing statistical work for football broadcasts, including games aired nationally on ABC. Known then as Jerry Kapstein, he befriended legendary broadcaster Keith Jackson, who suggested he look into becoming a legal representative for pro athletes. In 1972, Kapstein worked as a judge's advocate in Washington, DC, while also doing radio color commentary for the NBA's Washington Bullets. After moving back to Rhode Island, he worked the phones from a rented office on the fourth floor of the Hospital Trust Tower in downtown Providence and began forging relationships with MLB players.

Around that time the Major League Baseball Players Association, led by Marvin Miller, had successfully added the right to salary arbitration to the collective bargaining agreement. This led to the first arbitration hearings for players whose contracts had previously been automatically renewed by their clubs -- entirely at the team's discretion -- at the end of each season. Following the 1973 season, Kapstein represented Oakland Athletics players Ken Holtzman, Rollie Fingers and Darold Knowles in the first three such cases to be heard, going toe-to-toe with A's owner Charlie Finley. Using statistical studies to bolster his clients' cases, he won handsome salary increases for all three. Knowles, a journeyman reliever, improved from $50,000 to $59,000. Fingers, one of the better relief pitchers in baseball, went from $48,000 to $65,000. Holtzman, a 21-game winner with back-to-back All-Star Team selections on his resume, saw his pay jump from $66,500 to $93,000. That winter, Kapstein would represent players in 10 of the league's 29 arbitration cases, winning major raises for all of them. Following those victories, nearly every star player wanted Kapstein on their side. Among the first to sign on with him were Carlton Fisk and Bobby Grich.

Demand for Kapstein's services grew after arbitrator Peter Seitz struck down MLB's reserve clause on December 23, 1975. By the start of the 1976 season, he had 60 clients. When 24 players were granted free agency following the 1976 season, Kapstein's stable included most of the biggest names in the game. Of the 12 players who wound up signing million-dollar contracts, he represented seven of them: Fingers, Grich, Joe Rudi, Don Gullett, Gene Tenace, Sal Bando, and Don Baylor. Owners despised him, and general managers feared negotiating with him.

According to sportswriter Jerome Holtzman, Kapstein created a controversy when he took personal credit for the new salary structure:

"Puffed up by his good fortune, Kapstein told the media that he, alone, had orchestrated the new order. It was a fraudulent claim. Executive director Marvin Miller and attorney Dick Moss of the Players Association captained the players' bargaining team. Kapstein was nothing more than a spectator."

Kapstein's power was not limited to free agents or arbitration-eligible players. In addition to Fisk, Kapstein represented Red Sox players Rick Burleson and Fred Lynn. Unsatisfied with the team's response to contract negotiations, Kapstein engineered their collective holdouts at the start of the 1976 season. All three players missed most of Spring Training, and the defending AL champions lost 15 of their first 21 games. After longtime owner Tom Yawkey died July 9, Peter Gammons wrote that one of his columnist colleagues had "suggested Kapstein, Lynn, Burleson, and Fisk helped break his heart and were a factor in his death."

Though seemingly on the same side in the player vs management battle, Miller took umbrage at Kapstein's tactics in the Red Sox dispute. Kapstein negotiated five-year contracts for all three players, but after the fifth year they would give up their rights to free agency. Instead, the deals granted the Red Sox the "right of first refusal" that allowed the team to match any competing offer. As Miller told Fisk in explaining his frustrations:

"Look, you and Kapstein can stand on your heads for all I care. I’m representing all 600 players, and you, Burleson, and Lynn are not to have something in your contact that jeopardizes the other 597!"

Meanwhile the contentious battles between Kapstein and Finley led the Athletics to sell Rudi and Fingers to the Red Sox for $1 million each at the June 15 trading deadline. The A's also sold Vida Blue to the Yankees for $1.5 million, but before any of the players could see action with their new teams, commissioner Bowie Kuhn quickly vetoed the transactions after deeming them "not in the best interests of baseball."

Prior to the 1981 season, it was Kapstein's eye for detail that enabled Fisk to become a free agent. Red Sox GM Haywood Sullivan had been late in sending out Fisk's new contract, and Kapstein exploited a calendar technicality that allowed Fisk to hit the open market. A protracted bidding war would take place over the All-Star catcher's services before Fisk signed a five-year, $2.9 million deal with the Chicago White Sox on March 18, 1981.

Other players represented by Kapstein during his career included Dwight Evans, Jerry Remy, Mike Flanagan, Steve Garvey, Bert Campaneris, Goose Gossage, Richie Zisk and Al Bumbry.

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The Executive

In 1988, Kapstein married Linda Smith, daughter of San Diego Padres owner Joan Kroc and stepdaughter of the late McDonald's magnate Ray Kroc. Kapstein became the Padres' president the following year, using his birth name Jeremy instead of his longtime moniker Jerry. His hiring by a big league club prompted the MLBPA to decertify him and brought his days as a player agent to an end. In February 1990, he was named the Padres' CEO, with oversight of all club operations, but his primary task was to find a qualified buyer to take over the team. Two months later, he consummated a deal to sell the club to a group led by TV producer Tom Werner. The sale coincided with Linda's filing for divorce from Kapstein, who stepped down from the post.

Kapstein returned to the team as a member of the board of trustees. In 1995, Werner brought aboard Larry Lucchino to run baseball operations for the Padres. While working for the Baltimore Orioles, Lucchino and Kapstein had sparred at arbitration hearings and each had developed a healthy respect for the other, and Kapstein soon assumed an advisory role with Lucchino's group.

In 2002, when a group headed by John W. Henry, Werner, and the New York Times Co. purchased the Red Sox, Lucchino became Boston's President and CEO. Lucchino then tabbed Kapstein to serve as Senior Advisor/Baseball Projects, a post he maintains as of the 2008 season.

On November 1, 2005, Red Sox General Manager Theo Epstein abruptly resigned his position. While the front office considered its options, player and personnel matters were handled on a temporary collaborative basis by Kapstein, special assistant to the general manager for scouting Bill Lajoie, assistant to the general manager Jed Hoyer and director of player development Ben Cherington. Just two weeks prior to the annual winter meetings, the Red Sox completed the November 24 trade that sent prospects Hanley Ramirez, Anibal Sanchez, Harvey Garcia, and Jesus Delgado to the Florida Marlins for Josh Beckett, Mike Lowell and Guillermo Mota. Kapstein was widely credited for his role in negotiating and finalizing the deal.

The trade soon led to speculation that Kapstein would be named by Lucchino as the team's interim General Manager. Kapstein made a flurry of media appearances, and went on the record stating his interest in the position. Reports also circulated that he and Lucchino had already agreed on salary terms for the post. On December 12, 2005, the team named Hoyer and Cherington as co-general managers. Epstein returned to the team January 24, 2006, and resumed his role as general manager, with Hoyer and Cherington named to other posts. Meanwhile, Kapstein and Lajoie remained as senior advisors.

In September 2007, Kapstein was named as one of four finalists for the position of President of Minor League Baseball.

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Quotes

"Sure, I'm afraid of him. He can decide who wins pennants. He can regulate the structure of baseball." -- Minnesota Twins owner Calvin Griffith in 1976.

"I'm not evil. I always had what was best for my players uppermost in my mind ... This is a new world for baseball. Things have changed." -- Kapstein, to Boston Globe reporter Will McDonough in 1976.

"No one knows more baseball than Jerry Kapstein." -- Carlton Fisk

""He's the finest man I ever met. He had impeccable principles, he so well-organized and prepared in arbitrations and everything he told us all along from day one happened." -- Joe Rudi

"Time heals all wounds. [Kapstein] provides information, scuttlebutt, opinion, and evaluation on baseball matters. He's plugged into a certain vintage group of baseball people and he's highly regarded by many of them. He's part of our intelligentsia apparatus." -- Larry Lucchino in 2003

"Papelbon, I love his attitude on the mound -- ‘give me the ball’ -- and he throws two pitches extremely well. And to be a real closer, a lights-out closer, you either have to be a Trevor Hoffman, in your prime, a Keith Foulke, like he was in ’04, with a changeup and pinpoint control, or you have to be someone who wants the ball, Bobby Jenks, or a Billy Wagner or a Papelbon. Now has he closed? No. But is he a potential closer? Yes. Is he a potential starter? Yes. My feelings are to be a starter you need more than two pitches. You talk about a pitcher who was a great starting pitcher who only had two pitches ... I mean Sandy Koufax." -- Jeremy Kapstein on WEEI's Dennis and Callahan, 11/29/2005

"I said yes, I would absolutely take it. I’ve talked with ownership and Larry Lucchino about that and told them that I would take it for a year, two, whatever was appropriate if they decided to go in that direction and Larry and I had a very brief discussion about money. I took his first offer ... the bottom line is if you’re gonna be part of the team, be part of the team and that’s what happened. I talked to Larry about a one-year situation, he said ‘this is what I can pay you,’ I said ‘fine, we got a deal.’" -- Jeremy Kapstein, asked if he were interested in the Red Sox GM position, on WEEI's Dennis and Callahan, 11/29/2005

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Trivia

Kapstein is often visible during Red Sox telecasts sitting in his seats behind home plate at Fenway Park. Donning either a blue windbreaker or, less frequently, a navy blue blazer, he sits motionless for most of the game. Fans often confuse Kapstein with Giant Glass owner Dennis Drinkwater, who has blonde hair and sits about 6 seats to Kapstein's right (i.e. further to the left side of the TV screen).
Kapstein is a cousin of veteran left-handed reliever Scott Schoeneweis.
In 1976, United Press International named Kapstein one of the two most influential figures in the sports world, along with Romanian Olympic gymnast Nadia Comaneci.
Kapstein was at least as powerful as Scott Boras long before Boras achieved renown as an agent, but Kapstein was not known for flaunting his wealth in opulent fashion as Boras is wont to do. For his entire decade and a half as an agent, Kapstein always wore the same corduroy jacket and drove a 1973 Pontiac Grand Prix, and today he claims to buy all his shirts at Wal-Mart.
As an agent, Kapstein was known for never taking phone calls, only returning them.
In 1999, he was awarded the R.I. Coalition for the Homeless Humanitarian Award, for behind-the-scenes work for the homeless in San Diego.

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