RANDY LEVINE IN SPOTLIGHT AGAIN-- PIVOT POINT ON NEW AROD DEAL--NY Times

I had a feeling Randy Levine pretending to be in the background wasn't going to last long. Tyler Kepner reports Levine got the phone call from a Goldman Sachs dude designated to patch up the Arod mess. So, if and when a deal is signed... it's RANDY LEVINE WHO'S THE HEAVY AGAIN--what would we do without him? And I was getting to like Hank--at least he has a personality.

• (Kepner): "Two managing directors for Goldman Sachs, John Mallory and Gerald Cardinale, were pivotal in brokering the peace between Rodriguez and the Steinbrenners, who were miffed at Rodriguez for opting out of his contract on Oct. 28.

• Mallory works in Los Angeles and knows the Rodriguezes from Miami. The Rodriguezes reached out to Mallory, who called Cardinale, who is based in New York and is a YES Network board member.
• Cardinale called Levine several days ago and has since been instrumental in putting a deal together."

If Randy wasn't already our savior, he's also point man in the historic wording of Arod's compensation plan with the Yankees, making sure MLB itself is apprised on key points:

• (Kepner): "The sides are discussing a marketing plan in which Rodriguez, 32, would benefit financially as he passes home run benchmarks in the coming seasons. He has 518 home runs and is 17th on the career list. If he passes Babe Ruth, who had 714 homers, and Hank Aaron, who had 755, he would trail only Barry Bonds, who has 762.

“These are not incentive bonuses,” Steinbrenner said. “For lack of a better term, they really are historic-achievement bonuses. It’s a horse of a different color.”

• Steinbrenner said that the team president, Randy Levine, has been in contact with Major League Baseball to make sure the bonus package complies with a rule that does not allow teams to tie payments to certain individual statistics."

(Gee, no fair, Farnsworth gets to have an "incentive laden contract." Actually it's only 1 incentive, according to Cot's. He gets a bit of money for attaining a certain level on the Rolaids Relief Award balloting (given yearly to 1 reliever from each league). ) SM

• Items from NY Times article by Tyler Kepner, "Yankees May Pay Rodriguez for Home Run Record," 11/16/07

Tweet Stumbleupon StumbleUpon