1on1: Jeff Moorad (cont'd)

Q: What was the toughest, most challenging negotiation you ever did as an agent?

Moorad: That's a great question. Probably a trade that I helped broker. It was Raul Mondesi, who went from the Dodgers to Toronto; and on the other side of the trade, I had Shawn Green as a client who went from Toronto to L.A. I negotiated not only the terms of the deal for the most part, although the general managers on both sides were involved at some level, but I negotiated contract extensions on both ends: an $84 million deal for Green with the Dodgers, which at the time was, I think, the fifth-highest deal in baseball [history] and a $24 million, two-year extension for Mondesi with the Blue Jays. So that was probably the most challenging that I had done before. My ex-partner, Leigh Steinberg, always told me that as hard as you think it is to negotiate with an individual team, the hardest thing you'll ever have to do is to get two teams to try to cooperate on some level. And in that case, I did all of the above. So it was quite a challenge.

Jeff Moorad and Tom Garfinkel

Hall of Fame Racing

• Bit of 'Moneyball' to NASCAR
• Team unity at the ballpark

Q: J.J's contract was probably a walk in the park after that, wasn't it?

Moorad: J.J's was anything but a walk in the park. J.J. is a very focused young man, and a very good businessman. Those things need to be win-win. At the end of the day, we went to the well more than once -- but we felt like it was the right thing to do to sign J.J. to a multi-year contract.

Q: How many races to you plan to attend this year?

Moorad: I'm committed to making Hall of Fame Racing everything it can be. I'm also very focused on the work that we have to do out in Arizona. As a result, I probably will be at about a third of the races over the course of the season. At least that's the plan. My guess is that it will end up being more like half at the end of the day; just don't tell my wife.

Q: Do you plan to keep the Hall of Fame name?

Moorad: We have no plans to change it. Troy and Roger continue to stay involved. We like the brand, we think it's been a positive one ... despite the guessing of others, which I understand got pretty intense at one point, that it was going to change immediately.

Q: When did you become a race fan?

Moorad: Probably four years ago when I attended my first NASCAR event.

Q: Talk about how that came about ...

Moorad: I actually watched a fair amount of racing on television while I was growing up -- some NASCAR, but a lot of Indy car races as a kid. I'm from Modesto in Northern California. I was a [Rick] Mears fan, as he was from down in the valley in Bakersfield. I must admit, and I tell people all the time now, but until they attend their first live NASCAR event, they won't really appreciate the sport. That's largely based on my own experience. When I was first exposed to the sport, I became hooked immediately.

I'm the first to admit that I don't know a lot about the car itself. I'm learning and will continue to learn. But the reality is that I have a great appreciation for the challenge and the difficulty involved in competing at this level. It's certainly shown itself to be a significant challenge, and one that I'm thrilled to be a part of.

Q: What race did you go to?

Moorad: My first race was in Phoenix, four years ago.

Q: What about it hooked you?

Moorad: A combination of the noise, which I think is intoxicating, and the crowd, the fans. I love the roar of the engines. And the enthusiasm of the NASCAR fans which, to me, was like nothing I had ever seen before. To see 170,000 people at a raceway in combination of infield, grandstands, motorcoaches, RVS, you name it ... it was an experience I will never forget. My second race was at Daytona. I'll never forget, I happened to be the guest of a sponsor. ... and we drove onto the track. We drove on there in a van, and even that was an experience I will never forget.