Agent39's column has been posted on BP.
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=10133Crisis Management
by Josh Kusnick
Josh Kusnick is a Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based agent who will periodically write about his experiences representing professional baseball players and media personalities.
Everyone has an idea of what it is that I do. People have a perception of what all agents do. Some people think we're monsters ruining the purity of America's Past Time while others don’t know we exist. Just about everything valuable that I have learned in this business has come from good old-fashioned experience. There are certain things that I have learned by people teaching me directly while there are other things, valuable things, that I have been forced to learn on the fly. One example is crisis management. Unless you have advised someone in a major crisis situation, you wouldn't have any idea. This is not something you learn in school. It is something born from experience.
During the 2009 season, I had a client suspended for failing to comply with the minor-league drug testing program. This was not the first time this player was suspended for this offense and, from my perspective, this could potentially be an atomic bomb to his career. Fans rarely get to see the human impact of things like this but tend of primarily think about the impact they have on their favorite team. There are lives and families at stake, and as an agent, it is my responsibility to make sure that the family and the player are calmed no matter how bad the situation may seem. Think Phil Ivey pushing all in with 7/2 off suit at the final table at Binions. It's that serious, because a young man's career is at stake and, to some degree, so is mine.
continued.....
Josh, any objections to posting your whole article here?
BP has fairly liberal policies towards enforcing its copywrite rights.
