Sunday, October 25, 2009

Sports Law Blog's Joe Rosen Signs Red Sox Reliever Hideki Okajima as Client

Congratulations to agent/attorney Joe Rosen, who has guest blogged here on a number of occasions (including in 2005 when he asked "Is NASCAR a Sport?"), on signing as a client Boston Red Sox reliever Hideki Okajima. This news has been reported in the Boston Globe and Boston Herald, among other media outlets.

Joe is the President of the Baseball and Media Divisions of the Boston-based Orpheus Sports & Entertainment, which he co-founded with fellow agent/attorney Chris Brown. Both graduated from Boston College Law School in 1998 and both have taught sports and entertainment law courses at BC Law since. I have worked with both of them on a variety projects, including co-authoring a law review article on age eligibility rules in the NBA and NFL, and I'm thrilled to see the growth of their firm, which represents a number of prominent players and top prospects, as well as prominent media personalities, including WEEI's Jon Meterparel, who is the play-by-play voice of Boston College football games.

Back to the Okajima signing, the Boston Herald has details on some of the motivations for Okajima to move from one agent to Joe:

Red Sox left-handed reliever Hideki Okajima hired a new agent near the end of the season as a result of a rather large misunderstanding he had with his previous one, according to his new agent, Boston-based Joe Rosen.

“Hideki believed he was going to be a free agent at the end of his contract this year,” Rosen said. “There was some reason for him to believe it, but he was not misled by the agent (Peter Greenberg).”

Okajima’s disappointment over the misunderstanding led to the agent switch, according to Rosen, who said that Okajima has moved beyond the issue. Okajima is arbitration eligible but due to his contract language, must be offered that contract by Nov. 10, Rosen said.

According to his new agent, Okajima is “very” happy to be a Red Sox and that “he likes it here.” Okajima plans to leave for Japan next month with a stop in Hawaii before beginning his normal offseason training program later in the winter in Australia. Rosen said he was unsure if Okajima planned on running in the Honolulu Marathon as he did last December. His time was 6:08:35 - which is a pace of 14:03 per mile - which means Okajima did more walking than running. .

Congrats again to Joe.

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