Agent Delivers for Ballplayers With a Yen to Prolong Careers

When veteran major league pitcher Don Sutton was released by the Dodgers recently, he knew who to call.

And when the phone rang in the Manhattan Beach office of Alan Meersand, an international sports agent, he knew just what Sutton wanted.

So don’t be surprised if Sutton, 43 and well past his prime, prolongs his career at least two seasons in the Japanese baseball leagues.

“He would be foolish not to play there,” Meersand said.

Meersand’s company, Professional Sports Management Inc., has placed about 20 gaijin (outsiders) in Japanese baseball since 1982. He has tangled with the media in New York, been pictured on sports pages in Japan and called a “miracle worker” by Playboy magazine. In earning the title as the best negotiator in international baseball, Meersand has also accumulated memberships in 10 airline frequent-flier programs.

With the prospect of another baseball strike looming after the 1989 season, more and more major league players are looking on the other side of the Pacific Rim to prolong their careers. Many are marginal players in the U.S., yet Meersand can probably sign them to lucrative contracts in Japan. He has done it before.

Sutton should fetch a fair price, perhaps as much as $1.5 million each year, about twice as much as he made with the Dodgers, Meersand said. According to Playboy, that would be peanuts compared to what Meersand got Randy Bass, twice a Japanese triple-crown winner but a journeyman first baseman who batted just .212 here. Bass, formerly of the Osaka Hanshin Tigers, signed a two-year deal worth $4 million.

“In Japan a player can make three to 10 times the money that he can in the States,” Meersand said. “U.S. baseball officials consistently try to drive the salary value of a player down. In Japan, they tend to overpay.”

Meersand also helps American basketball players find teams in Italian professional leagues.

Sometimes forgotten with all of his overseas dealings, however, is that Meersand also handles baseball players in this country. Some of his 50 clients include Dodger relief pitcher Jesse Orosco, Mets outfielder Lenny Dykstra and San Diego pitcher Eric Show. About half the players he handles are playing professional baseball here.

“He gets the job done, and that’s what’s important,” said Chicago Cubs catcher Damon Berryhill, a Meersand client.

Meersand will be off to Tokyo in September to negotiate a new contract for American Ty Van Burkleo. An unknown in the U.S., Van Burkleo leads the Japanese major leagues in home runs for the Seibu Lions. In the negotiations Meersand expects face-to-face dealings with Yoshiaki Tsutsumi, the billionaire owner of 300 companies, including the Lions. Meersand, who speaks Japanese, says he expects the unexpected when dealing with Tsutsumi and others.

“There is no logic as to what they do,” he said of Japanese baseball owners. “Just when you think you have the Japanese mind figured out, they throw you a classic curve. They are a tough people to do business with.”

Baseball in Japan is “a different style of ball” from that played in the U.S., Meersand said. So, too, are the ways in which executives in the U.S. negotiate.

In the United States, Meersand says, he can “get a feel, some feedback” when talking to a representative of a team. Often he negotiates with just one person. In Japan, “nobody makes a unilateral decision. Everything is done by committee. . . . It requires a lot of patience and understanding.”

An agent, Meersand said, should be “a friend and consultant” to each client. In his dealings with the Japanese, for instance, Meersand selects only those players he thinks will be well behaved and can adjust to life in a foreign country.

“I look for two main points,” he told the Tokyo Weekender magazine in 1985. “The first is character and attitude. The second is a player’s ability and potential to be able to adjust to Japan and Japanese baseball. I seek out possible candidates, educate them about Japan and would not send a player to Japan with even a questionable attitude.”

Seated in his Manhattan Beach Boulevard office, Meersand is surrounded by photographs of himself with professional baseball players on both sides of the Pacific. He is dressed in a shirt, tie and slacks but wears no socks with his black loafers.

“I’m more comfortable in Hawaiian shirts,” he said.

The Culver City native has come a long way from his days as the baseball coach at Santa Monica College where he resigned in anger in 1977 when the school built a library on its baseball field. He took a job in commercial real estate but soon “realized I wanted to stay in baseball.

“My funds were limited. The income level wasn’t what I wanted it to be.”

On the side, he solicited players to become his clients. By 1980 he had established himself as a bona fide player representative and quit the real estate job.

As his client list grew, so did Professional Sports Management. Besides relocating in Manhattan Beach recently, the company also has an office in Tokyo. Meersand is not a lawyer, but he has a staff of attorneys internationally. He says it is his goal to offer “a full-service agency” to his clients. The corporation offers tax planning, accounting, investment planning and endorsement services for each player. After the Mets won the World Series in 1986, for example, Meersand secured more than $400,000 in product endorsements for Dykstra.

“The best thing I can say about Alan is that he busts his rear end for his players,” Dykstra said. “Anytime I need him, he is always there. He cares for you more than what happens on the field. He cares for his players as more than just a person, and that’s why I’ll never leave him.”

Success means Meersand no longer solicits players’ business. They come looking for him. He has turned down Japanese players looking to sign in the major leagues here.

He also insists that American players “give something back” to fans in this country. That is one way most players can prolong their careers in the U.S. majors, Meersand said, because they will be perceived as good guys in the press and with baseball executives.

A classic example of Meersand’s strategy was turned in by Orosco when he was with the New York Mets. A Hispanic, Orosco purchased a thousand seats for each home game at Shea Stadium under the direction of Meersand. He gave the tickets away to underprivileged Hispanic children in the New York area.

“I don’t want to represent any jerks,” Meersand said. “I’m fortunate that now I am in the position that I can represent the clients I want. I want good citizens.”

A favorite target of Meersand is what he sees as an overzealous media. Although he admits there have been “more than a few” bad agents, he says the media has unfairly portrayed the majority as “greedy, avaricious hucksters” as well as creating the sense that professional athletes are overpaid.

“I got burned a lot in the beginning,” he said of a stormy relationship with the press. “I learned to trust a few writers. There are certain writers in New York, however, that I wouldn’t talk to if they sent me cash in an envelope. The media invents stories and creates controversy.”

Meersand prefers to set his ego aside and sidestep the controversy. In doing so, he has created a happy group of clients in a business that once was a child’s game.