Two Agents, Two Murders, 31 Years

Super-agent Scott Boras, as we all know, is the devil. But a grim agent-comparison across the years of horrific Angels tragedies shows that maybe he’s not as bad as the look-who’s-ruining-baseball-now grumps think. First, here’s Boras talking the afternoon after Adenhart’s death:

Boras on Adenhart, YouTube

Now, let’s see how the agent in question behaved in September 1978, after the pennant-race murder of Angel Lyman Bostock. Cue Don Baylor:

Buzzie Bavasi called downstairs and asked if I would come to his office. When I got there Buzzie started ranting and raving. “Son of bitch” this and “son of a bitch” that. I did not understand what was going on until Buzzie told me that Lyman’s agent, Abdul-Jalil [al-Hakim], had called within hours of the accident requesting money from Lyman’s paycheck, supposedly for some unfinished business deals that Lyman’s wife was not aware of. Buzzie was incensed, having already given Lyman a check to cover the agent’s fee — $145,000 — and he stood there vowing not to pay out another dime to anyone but Lyman’s widow. I was angry, too. Lyman was not even buried yet.

Buzzie told me right then and there that he would never, ever deal with Abdul-Jalil again and I should go tell that to Abdul-Jalil’s other clients on the team: Ron Jackson, Ken Landreaux, and Danny Goodwin.

I went down and called the three guys over and delivered the message. I told them about the request for money Abdul-Jalil supposedly had made. I did not tell the amount, which Buzzie told me was in the thousands of dollars. “Buzzie didn’t think it was time to do that,” I said. “So he does not want to deal with this agent at all.”

The three did not react, so I left it at that. The next day I got a mailgram from Abdul-Jalil informing me that he intended to sue for $1 million for defamation of character. [...]

I did question his character. I did so even more when I found out a few days later Lyman had no will, leaving the way open for the state of California to get paid before Lyman’s widow. Then I learned that Abdul-Jalil had rejected the club’s request that Lyman take out an insurance policy instead of the club. If he had done so, the benefits would have gone to his wife, tax-free. Instead the beneficiary was the club and Lyman’s widow then received the money as taxable income. What would have cost Lyman about $11,000 wound up costing his widow about $500,000 in taxes.

While Baylor is a bit of an unreliable narrator, his account is backed up (nearly word for word!) in L.A. Times beat writer Ross Newhan’s definitive franchise treatise, The Anaheim Angels: A Complete History. And Bavasi indeed traded all three other Abdul-Jalil clients before the 1979 season, to the Minnesota Twins.