February 23, 2011

Crawford "Freaked Out" By Sox's Investigation

Theo Epstein said part of the Red Sox's due diligence in deciding whether to sign Carl Crawford involved following him around for "literally the last three, four months of the season at the ballpark, away from the ballpark ... we covered him as if we were privately investigating him."

Theo is undoubtedly kicking himself for using what he later said was "a bad figure of speech", and while Crawford says he was "creeped out" when Epstein told him about it during the negotiations, he still signed with the Sox.
I guess that's what they have to do when they're making that kind of investment. ... He told me straight up ...I didn't say nothing, but I'm from an area where if somebody's doing that to you, they're not doing anything good. I get paranoid when I hear those kind of stories ... I wasn't comfortable with that at all. I don't know how they do it, how much distance they keep from you when they watch you the whole time. ... I'm always looking over my shoulder now. Now I look before I go in my house. I'd better not see anything suspicious now.
Epstein said yesterday the team did nothing out of the ordinary with Crawford, that it was part of normal process before signing a high-priced free agent.
Example
Switch-hitting D'Angelo Ortiz, 6, says the Red Sox have not spoken to him about a contract.

9 comments:

laura k said...

I'm from an area where if somebody's doing that to you, they're not doing anything good.

Yeah, me too. The area called Planet Earth! That would freak me out, too.

Great photo. Agent 13!

mattymatty said...

That is a bit disconcerting, but for $142 million, I understand it as long as nobody's rights were violated which it sounds like they weren't.

Still, I'm with Crawford. That is creepy.

Pokerwolf said...

It sounds like that's how they verify what a player says about their personal time, who they hang out with, and so on. Apparently, whoever the Sox hire they do a good job, since Crawford didn't even know he was being tailed.

Dr. Jeff said...

Why would they admit this to him or to anyone?

laura k said...

Why would they admit this to him or to anyone?

I'm guessing because they don't think there's anything wrong with it.

* * * *

This also can be seen as a higher-priced version of what many employers do, Googling to see what their prospective employees have posted online, or what may be posted about them. It's usually considered fair game, even though what a person does outside of work shouldn't be his/her employer's business.

allan said...

I'm guessing because they don't think there's anything wrong with it.

Theo did say it was part of the normal process. Maybe all/most teams do it. Maybe they told him during their talks in case he found out afterwards. That might not been good.

It shows how interested and serious they were -- though it's nearly impossible to present it as a positive. And Crawford admits to being freaked out by it.

If lots of teams do it, do they also tell the players? If so, wouldn't word get around and big free agent guys would know they were likely going to be spied on?

allan said...

Crawford on the radio with Dennis & Callahan (via SoSH):

"I understand why they did it and it wasn't anything negative, just never had anything like that happen to me before."

"They do it to all the guys, it was just different but not a big deal."

"I understand it."

9casey said...

For a 142 million , I let Theo shower with me......

laura k said...

For a 142 million , I let Theo shower with me......

There's no "let" here. Theo just sends guys into the shower with you, you just have to deal with it.