Barry Axelrod obit

Bryce Miller: Legendary Encinitas agent Barry Axelrod remembered by Wally Joyner, Phil Nevin, others

 

He was not on the list.

Axelrod, who died Thursday at 77, brought special approach to brokering deals with Padres and others.

There’s no doubt Barry Axelrod was more than an agent with a string of stars linked like glistening pearls in his rollicking, belly-laughing baseball universe.

Axelrod was a connection to the past in a game that has grown paralyzingly analytical and cynical, blurred by a blizzard of money and brand awareness.

“There’s a lot of reasons why our game has changed, but if you look at the agent Barry was and the clients he had, it was different,” said former Padres star Phil Nevin, a client and friend who recently managed the Angels. “You don’t have those small packs of great dudes in one place. Now it’s, ‘How many guys can I get my hands on?’

“He wanted a tight group. We were all great friends. He brought people together better than anyone I’ve known in my life. Most of my close friends are all because of Barry.”

Stories rippled across baseball at the news Axelrod died Thursday in his Encinitas home. He was 77.

Axelrod molded the contracts of Hall of Famers Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio with the Astros, All-Stars Rick Sutcliffe and Mark Grace, and a trio of golden-era Padres: Nevin, Wally Joyner and Jake Peavy.

The amiable deal broker could flip the switch, being cool and calculated when deals were being cut to a trusted and precious friend for parties on both sides when the ink had dried.

Joyner remembered his unique contract-shaping creativity when he joined the Padres after a run with the Royals. When Kansas City patriarch Ewing Kauffman died, the first baseman grew more and more uncomfortable with the direction of the franchise.

The team was dumping payroll and Joyner, the highest paid member of the team in 1995, was hunting daylight.

“I saw this happening, but I had a no-trade clause,” Joyner said Friday. “I approached the GM and said, ‘Hey, listen. It doesn’t matter if I go 0-for-4 or 4-for-4, all you see is dollar signs. I know you guys are going in another direction. If I get permission to talk to other teams, maybe I can figure something out and we can all be happy.’

“I quickly called Barry. He quickly called K.T. (Padres GM Kevin Towers).”

The Padres were not thrilled about the prospect of paying Joyner nearly $5 million for his final season, so he pitched a multi-year deal for about $11 million.

The MLB Players Association planned to nix the arrangement, Joyner said, because they were unhappy it would reduce the league-wide negotiating benchmark known as average annual value.

“Barry told (MLBPA representative) Gene Orza, ‘OK, we’re going to have a press conference and let them know you aren’t going to allow this to happen. You’ve got 15 minutes,’ ” Joyner recalled. “They called back in 10.

“It was a fantastic move for me. I got to play for (manager) Bruce Bochy and the pieces came together for the World Series run in 1998.”

Axelrod had a flair for the uncommon, finding the finish line of complex business negotiations in ways that would cause heads to shake in modern-day front offices.

When the final details of a contract with Nevin were finalized, the call to the player came from a hot tub in Napa with both Axelrod and Towers more than a few drinks in.

No board room needed. Bordeaux worked just fine.

“I get this call late at night and the two of them are in a hot tub,” Nevin said. “They had a lot of wine and said, this is what we’re going to do. I said, ‘OK.’ ”

The working relationship and friendship between Axelrod and Towers became legendary and another sign of a long-, long-gone era.

Padres Assistant General Manager Fred Uhlman Jr., who left the franchise in April after 29 years, laughed at the stories of negotiations on planes as Towers played cards with players.

One time, in the case of Nevin, Axelrod was waiting on the tarmac to unwind things and stir the pot.

“Kevin and Barry, they could go at it and have a disagreement at 1 in the afternoon,” Uhlman said. “By 7 they were having a beer.”

Count Axelrod as a deal maker with a heart.

When Sutcliffe arrived at free agency after winning the 1984 Cy Young, Axelrod and Sutcliffe debated the merits of possible teams — including the Padres — during a clandestine hotel meeting.

When Sutcliffe decided on the Cubs, despite it not being the highest offer, the men sat crying on hotel beds.

“I was very proud that we did it with integrity,” Axelrod told the Union-Tribune in 2020. “We didn’t lie to anyone. We didn’t create bidding wars. We didn’t do any of that. We both had tears streaming down our face the whole time.”

Axelrod created special connections with other clients, including professional skater Michelle Kwan, baseball-playing Deion Sanders and actors Mark Harmon and Pam Dawber.

Others sensed Axelrod was not cut from predictable cloth.

“When I got to San Diego, Towers and Bochy and Tony (Gwynn), we’d spend evenings going over the game playing poker,” Joyner said. “There weren’t GMs who would associate with players like Kevin. I think a lot of it had to do with Barry and his relationships with players.

“Barry decertified as an agent to be Kevin’s special assistant with the Diamondbacks. That’s the kind of thing he would do. Barry touched a lot of lives in this game.”

Nevin thought back to a telling moment.

“One time, Barry went to K.T. and put in an option year on my next deal,” he said. “I was just in the process of switching over to Barry from another agent. K.T. said, ‘You son of a (expletive). You talked to Axelrod and he’s not even your agent.’

“Then he said, ‘You’re making the best move of your career.’ And he was right.”

Going back through text messages with Axelrod over the years unearthed one where I thanked him for sharing backroom baseball stories. He replied: “Most can’t be told, except over a bourbon. And after a thorough search to make sure you’re not wearing a wire.”

Different days, indeed 

Axelrod spent three years in the general practice of law in a small firm, before he joined the firm of Steinberg & Demoff as a partner and helped create the firm's Sports and Entertainment practice. Within two years, the firm represented approximately 100 athletes in the National Football League, National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, Women's Tennis Association, women's golf, auto racing, and rodeo.

Axelrod left the firm in 1978 and became a sole practitioner with a focus on Sports and Entertainment Law. He began operating his own law firm in Encinitas, California in 1979. He was a member of the Sports Lawyers Association and taught Sports Law at Pepperdine University Law School in 1994 to 1995.

Axelrod's first client was his UCLA roommate, Mark Harmon. He also represented Harmon's wife, Pam Dawber. Axelrod also represented Jake Peavy, Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio, Matt Morris, Matt Clement, Phil Nevin, as well as former San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks general manager Kevin Towers, broadcasters Rick Sutcliffe, Mark Grace and Wally Joyner, and professional figure skater Michelle Kwan.