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To Lure LeBron James, Maybe the Sixers Could Use the Strategy the Phillies Tried with John Smoltz
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John Smoltz was recently on Harry Mayes’ golf show, which is called Swing it and Ding it. He recalled the Phillies’ free agency pursuit of 1996, which included memberships to exclusive golf clubs in the Philadelphia region:
“It was one of the greatest offers I’ve ever received. Not so much blowing me away money-wise, but blowing me away perk-wise… Certainly they were in the mix, along with the Atlanta Braves, and the New York Yankees, but when they started mentioning Pine Valley, and/or Merion, my head started going, ‘if we don’t get close with the Braves, I know where I’m going.’ And it would have been to Philadelphia. But the Braves came close and matched that offer, and certainly, you know, I wanted to play my whole career in Atlanta. I almost did, but that was such a great strategy, that it made me think a lot about, ‘whoah.’ That would have been the push over the top. That would have got me here, to Philadelphia.”
You know how the story ends. Smoltz went on to play 11 more seasons with the Braves, going to the All-Star Game four more times while the Phillies won 68 games in 1997. They had Curt Schilling and not much else in the starting rotation back then.
But this is a good strategy. The Sixers can’t give LeBron a max deal, only $3.9 million as a vet minimum, so what about perks instead? Does LeBron like to golf? What about the shore?
We could put together a package of:
- memberships to Pine Valley, Merion, and Aronimink
- a fully-furnished shore house in Wildwood
- unfettered access to the Union League and Fitler Club
- a Grateful Dead poster from the Surf Mall
- one of those Chipotle cards the MLS players used to get (you basically get free Chipotle for life)
- a Lower Gwynedd/Blue Bell mansion
- take away Mike Trout’s Eagles tickets and give them to LeBron
- all family members get a full ride to a snooty private school of their choice (St. Joe’s Prep, Malvern Prep, GA, etc)
- free use of Josh Harris’ helicopter
- SEPTA key card with infinite money on it
- let him “Ignite the Orange” at every Flyers home game
- unlimited free play at the RetroWare Arcade
- full access to the Boyertown pool
- one of those “Italia” t-shirts from the boardwalk that everyone was wearing back in 2006
- free food and gas at the Aramingo Avenue Wawa
- Taco Tuesday home delivered by Loco Pez
Who says no? Let’s start working on the comprehensive package for LeBron so we can get this number up:
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com