When the Yankees re-signed Mariano Rivera two weeks ago there were numerous reports that the Red Sox made him a multi-year offer worth as much or more than he ended up accepting from New York.
As if that weren’t juicy enough, now Rob Bradford of WEEI.com writes: “According to multiple major league sources, Mariano Rivera’s representatives were the ones to initiate contact with the Red Sox in an attempt to get the team interested in the closer.”
Wow.
Much has been made about how differently Rivera treated his free agency and eventual re-signing with the Yankees than Derek Jeter did, but perhaps it wasn’t so different after all aside from Rivera being able to keep everything (mostly) under wraps.
Jeter and his agent tried to play hardball with the Yankees in a mostly unsuccessful attempt to get them to increase their offer, but at least there were never any reports (accurate or not) of his representatives initiating contact with the Red Sox.
