Multiple recruiting calls by Alex Rodriguez and Johnny Damon were instrumental in wooing A.J. Burnett to the Bronx, according to a baseball official familiar with the two Yankees' talks with Burnett.
A-Rod and Damon, who both repeatedly expressed admiration for Burnett's pitching last season while the righty was going 3-1 with a 1.64 ERA in five starts against the Yankees, urged Burnett to join them with the Bombers and touted New York as a great place to play.
"Johnny was calling him regularly, and he and Alex talked on numerous occasions," said the baseball official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Johnny was extremely influential in this process, absolutely out front on this deal."
People - including myself - were wondering if the Yankees would miss Joe Torre as a recruiter this off-season. I guess they didn't miss him. Derek Jeter helped recruit CC, and now we find out this about A-Rod and Damon with Burnett. Nice job fellas."They had some banter back and forth and developed a relationship," the official said of Burnett and Damon. "It's over the last couple of years, just chatting.
"Johnny talked to A.J. about New York, the differences between New York and Boston, how he views it. Johnny couldn't be happier here and he communicated those thoughts to A.J. I know at one point he told A.J. about dealing with New York and told him, 'Be accountable. If you're accountable, you'll be fine. Don't fear the media unless you give them a reason.'
"I know on a couple of occasions, Johnny said to him, 'You don't have anything to worry about.'"
6 Comments:
How can Arod not want this guy to be his teammate? The guy fanned him 5 times over 13 AB last year.
I hope the entire team sends Teixeira a Christmas Card...I want him under our tree. A call from Jeter at this point would be a nice touch...Perhaps a juniors cheesecake and a bottle of Rao's pasta sauce???
I hope the Yanks give their new guys, and all players, pointers on dealing with the media. When you stink, say you stunk, when you did great, thank teammates. Stay away from controversial comments. Be vanilla, no controversy, take a lesson from the greats like Jeter, Messier, Gretzky.
I don't think managers recruit players. I honestly think that the best recruiter you can have is a player. Players are your peers, they've been through it. A manager, as good as they might be at selling the city to a player, will never be as trusted as another player. That's why players talking to AJ and CC probably had way more impact than even Joe Torre (or Girardi) could have.
Think about it. If you're applying for a job, and you want to know if it's nice to work there or not, do you ask the head of the company, or do you ask 4 or 5 employees who will be your peers? If the boss says "it's great" but the employees say they're miserable, it could ruin it. If the employees rave about it, want you on their "team", it doesn't matter what the boss says, you want in.
I totally agree that the players had more of an impact than Girardi would have had, I'm not sure about Torre, though.
Joe Torre is a different manager. His players love and trust him, at least that's what I've gotten from everything I've read about him that wasn't said by Gary Sheffield and Kenny Lofton.
Following is the transcript of A-Rod's phone call to AJ:
"Come sign with us NOW or I'll set Madonna on you".
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