Danny Lazano: Making A Difference

by Doug Banker

Baseball players today are some of the richest entertainers out there. They are compensated millions of dollars to play their passion baseball. However, when players are exceeding contracts over $20 million dollars per year, I asked one of the Jerry Maguires of Baseball, Danny Lozano, sports agent with the Beverly Hills Sports Council, when is it too much? He promptly responded, "The ball players in the league are the 700 best baseball players in the world. They deserve every penny of what they make. I bet if you took the top CEO's in the country, you would find that they make 2 to 3 times the amount of these guys." He went on to say, "Players are only capable of making what the market is willing to offer. This business is not about greed, you are paid for your productivity, and players, like anyone else, just want to be paid fairly."

With clients such as Mike Piazza, Bobby Bonilla, John Franco, Brady Anderson, Curt Schilling and Rickey Henderson, Beverly Hills Sports Council is kept pretty busy. In a recent telephone interview, I learned that basically there are many types of player-clients. "Clients have many interests," Dan told me, "some are interested in where they play, others are interested in how much they can make, others are interested in being a part of a winning franchise, etc." Though, when clients are not happy with their organization, or they are disappointed with how much they are getting paid, Mr. Lozano must reconcile those problems as well. "If a problem can be resolved between a player and an organization, it is my role to finalize the agreement. However, if an agreement cannot be resolved, it is also my duty to step in and propose a deal or figure out a way to make sure both sides are satisfied."