Free The Best Team Money Can Buy: The Los Angeles Dodgers' Wild Struggle to Build a Baseball Powerhouse by Molly Knight Page A

had been the first overall pick in the 2000 draft, and hehad lived up to his potential. During his nine-year career he had kept his nose clean, never having been mentioned on a human growth hormone mailing list or in a police report. And above all else, the man could still rake. Even though the Red Sox had fallen out of contention in 2012, Gonzalez wanting out of Boston wouldn’t have been enough to force the club’s hand. The Dodgers made the Red Sox an offer they couldn’t refuse, at precisely the right moment. That morning, Yahoo! Sports reported that a frustrated Gonzalez had texted Henry to complain about Valentine. Players had met with ownership to disuss their unhappiness, and details about that meeting leaked as well. When Kasten approached Henry in that Denver hotel, a frustrated Henry was ready to blow up everything and start over.
    After months of failed negotiations,it took Kasten and Henry just fifteen minutes to agree to the most expensive trade in baseball history. When the deal was done, Kasten returned to the lobby and flashed a thumbs-up to Walter, who was in the middle of his interview and snuck a glance at his lieutenant over the reporters’ shoulders. The two journalists had no idea what had just gone down.
    Ned Colletti wasn’t even in the state of Colorado.
    Eleven days after the Denver summit, after medical records were reviewed and the Red Sox finalized the list of young prospects they wanted from the Dodgers, the two sides announced the trade. In the nine-player deal, the Dodgers got Gonzalez, Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford, and Nick Puntoin exchange for James Loney and a package of minor leaguers that included pitcher Allen Webster, outfielder Jerry Sands, infielder Ivan DeJesus, and, the gem of the deal, the Dodgers’ top right-handed pitching prospect, Rubby De La Rosa. To complete the trade, Los Angeles also took on a staggering $250 million in player salary. In Gonzalez, the Dodgers got the slugging first baseman they craved to anchor their lineup. In Beckett, they landed a veteran starting pitcher whose brilliant early career included being named the World Series MVP at age twenty-three after leading the Marlins to an improbable championship over the mighty Yankees. They also got aninjury-prone player on the wrong side of thirty who had posted a 5.23 ERA in Boston that season. Beckett was owed a cool thirty-five million bucks over the next two years, and it was doubtful he’d be worth half that.
    Crawford, a speedy left fielder, had also been miserable in Boston. After he had spent his entire career in Tampa Bay, the Red Sox had signed him to a massive contract following an intense round of free agent bidding before the 2011 season. And like Gonzalez, he never fit. A tremendous high school athlete in Houston in the late nineties, Crawford received a scholarship offer from the University of California, Los Angeles, to play point guard for its basketball team, and an offer from Nebraska to run the read option at quarterback. After mulling his options, Crawford chose to skip college when the Devil Rays took him in the second round of the 1999 draft and offered him a $1.2 million signing bonus to play baseball instead.
    For the most part, life in Tampa was good for Crawford. The Rays had called him up at age twenty and made him their full-time left fielder and leadoff hitter when he was just twenty-one. By twenty-two he’d made his first All-Star team, and led the American League in stolen bases (55) and triples (19). He stole six bases in a game against the Red Sox in 2009, tying the modern major-league record. For someone so fast his bat had a noble amount of pop in it, too. During his last year in Tampa, Crawford hit a career-high nineteen home runs. That off-season he was considered to be one of the best players on the free agent market, and the Angels were among the teams that had courted him. Still, when the Red Sox signed him that December to a seven-year deal worth $142 million—the