Morning briefing

There are certain portraits that announce you’ve arrived.

If Annie Leibovitz takes your photograph, for example, or the Wall Street Journal does one of those stipple images of you or the New Yorker caricatures you, you’ve made it big.

So there’s uber-agent Scott Boras in the Oct. 29 issue of the New Yorker, drawn as the man in black, looking supremely self-assured as his prized client Alex Rodriguez, late of the Yankees, gazes up at him from near his feet.

Never have dinner with this guy

Boras probably could have done without the accompanying headline, “The Extortionist,” but there you have it.

The story is an illuminating look at the complexity of the Newport Beach agent who is one of the game’s power players.

“To the extent that lay people still find it offensive when baseball players command salaries equivalent to those of movie stars and underperforming hedge-fund managers, Boras is a convenient bogeyman, and at every ballpark there are bound to be a few hecklers who let him know it,” Ben McGrath writes. “He was brought up Catholic, and, as he told a newspaper reporter earlier this year, ‘Being Catholic, who you are as a person, you don’t appreciate any association with Satan.’ ”

Boras is not a yeller at the negotiating table, but “a calm and even cartoonish condescender,” the story goes on to say, a man who “comes across as someone who has never doubted his own dinner selection -- although he would be happy to inform you of all the ways that you should doubt yours.”

Trivia time

How many World Series games in the last four years have been won by the National League team?

Never hurts to ask

The Toledo Mud Hens, the Detroit Tigers’ top minor league team, reportedly sent a letter to Boras this week offering Rodriguez a contract -- including a bonus if A-Rod leads the team to 10 consecutive International League titles.

The playful offer came after one of George Steinbrenner’s sons, Hank Steinbrenner, made a remark to the New York Times after Rodriguez opted out of his $252-million contract with the Yankees, saying, “Does he want to go into the Hall of Fame as a Yankee, or a Toledo Mud Hen?”

The team made up a mock Hall of Fame plaque of Rodriguez wearing a Mud Hens cap, but noted he would have to compete for a job with third baseman Mike Hessman, the team’s best player last season.

“Would your client be willing to play a different position?” the letter reportedly asked.

And plenty of bats

Members of the UC Irvine baseball team that reached the College World Series last season practiced in costume on Halloween.

Among the participants: pirates, a Santa, a penguin, Gilligan and the skipper too, and a buxom maid.

Center fielder Ollie Linton, one of the team’s standouts, went as Steve Urkel, the character from the 1990s sitcom “Family Matters”.

Anyone paying attention?

There was some identity-switching going on at UCLA football practice on Wednesday, too, when center Chris Joseph and tailback Chris Markey switched jerseys.

A neat trick for the 289-pound Joseph, who had to squeeze into a jersey made for a 205-pound running back.That was either a Halloween gag or a precaution against Arizona spies, who now will report that the Bruins’ tailback has put on an awful lot of weight.

Trivia answer

Four, all by the St. Louis Cardinals in 2006. The National League was swept in 2004, 2005 and 2007.

And finally

Dodgers General Manager Ned Colletti is scheduled to speak at a conference today in Westlake Village called “Good to Great: Secrets to Success @ Work.”

All you need to do, folks, is hire the equivalent of a manager who has won four World Series titles. Colletti might not mention Jason Schmidt, however.

robyn.norwood@latimes.com