Ballscarer in tense contract negotiations

via Everard Grenthumb from Dwaling

MIRKWOOD - There were some tense moments in the owners office as an All-Star player announced his intention to become a Free-Agent 1 year early. Owner Cableman and Manager Thranduil Elvenking and several others of the Marauder management held a marathon meeting with Catcher Curt 'The Bat' Ballscarer and his agent in what can only be described as a nail biting experience.

Ballscarer came to Mirkwood in a trade with Gondor 5/6/2003 and had an unspectacular minor league stint lasting through the 2004 season. But starting with the 2005 season, he came up to The Show full time and has been outstanding. These Batting Averages have propelled him to the Number 3 spot in the Career Leader Board for Batting Average:

2005: .336
2006: .319
2007: .354
2008: .328
2009: .315 (to date)

Ballscarer is a 2-time Shire Conference All-Star. And his Post-Season numbers rival his regular season averages with a .323 overall batting average. There is no question that Curt 'The Bat' Ballscarer is an intregal part of the Marauders success. So much so, that when rumors of his decision to dive into the waters of Free-Agency reached the fans they started arriving at the stadium. As deep negotiations continued in the skybox offices the stadium slowly and quietly (amazingly) filled.

The tension filled office dialogue was leaked by a source involved in the meeting and this is how the drama unfolded. After the initial small talk was dispensed with, Manager Elvenking started the negotiations by putting what he considered a generous offer on the table of double the 26 year old Ballscarer's current salary of $4,028,571 which was $8,037,814 for 4 years.

Ballscarer, who is an Orc, and his agent conferred and after about an hour responded that the amount of money was not enough and he was getting impatient. The Management Team then huddled and according to the source they were starting to sweat a little because they hadn't taken Ballscarer seriously at first. It was decided that they needed to go bigger on the salary and longer in duration so Elvenking came back after more than an hour and a half and pitched this offer hoping Ballscarer would catch it...
$11,657,571 for 6 years.

With a stoic poker face giving no indication one way or the other, Ballscarer and his agent once again moved off into hushed discussion. My source indicated that at this point the Owner Cableman was extremely nervous and had begun pacing back and forth. After about 40 minutes Ballscarer returned and stated that he thought that the number of years on the offer was too many.

According to my source at that moment Cableman blanched and all the blood drained from his face, he looked like he was going to have a heart attack. The Management Team conferred again and decided that the tone of Ballscarer's reply was such that the dollar amount was ok, just the number of years was too long. The proposal to try for $11,657,571 for 5 years was put to a vote among the Management Team but Elvenking stopped it. He reminded them that if Ballscarer was good with the money that meant he was good with the total of $11,657,571 for 6 years or $69,945,426. So if he were offered $11,657,571 for 5 years it would be an insult because we were now offering him less money. So it was decided to divide the $69,945,426 by 5 and offer Ballscarer $13,989,086 for 5 years. A very visibly shaken Cableman delivered the offer to Ballscarer.

Ballscarer's Agent chuckled as they moved off to discuss the most recent and most likely 3rd and last offer. After about 15 minutes as the Mangement Team looked on just out of earshot it bacame apparent that Ballscarer and his agent were arguing. It became more and more heated until finally Ballscarer reached out and grabbed the agent by the neck and tossed him into one of the overstuffed armchairs on the other side of the office. Ballscarer then strode toward Cableman who feared he had lost his star Catcher, but was shocked and relieved when Ballscarer said "I accept your offer". The office immediately broke into applause.

Ballscarer and Cableman went out onto the skybox's balcony and announced the agreement to the hushed crowd who broke into a frenetic applause which lasted a full 2 hours.

I am a reporter but I am also a Marauder fan so I was very excited to have been covering this story.

Posted at August 18, 2005 07:19 AM | more from Mirkwood