Privacy For Sale?

      For Carl Crawford, signing his contract with the Boston Red Sox was a simple equation: the money was right, the club was a contender, and his home park would be under the lights at Fenway Park.  For the Boston Red Sox, the deal was processed after due diligence and careful studying.  Please emphasize the words diligence and studying.  Theo Epstein indicated to Crawford and the media on Tuesday that the Boston Red Sox conducted an in-depth back round check on the All-Star, which included both on the field game play and off the field personal activity.

While most employers today engage in following up on potential workers by looking into their past, the Red Sox may have crossed the line with having someone tail Crawford as he went about his business.  I do not blame the Red Sox brain trust for needing reassurance before it pulled the trigger in signing Crawford to a lucrative contract, bringing his services to Boston.  But personal privacy is the issue at hand.  At what point do employers stop themselves from prying into someone’s life without their knowledge or consent?  While back round reports are black and white and often contain information such as criminal records, employment and financial histories, having a “private investigator” delve deep into one’s everyday life is as gray an action as its notion suggests.  

While a player earns millions of dollars a year in salary, does that total make it perfectly justifiable for a team to override the rights of that individual?  It is certainly understandable for a franchise to protect an investment or investigate a potential deal to its fullest, it must be perfectly known that the club does not own this player.  Rather, they simply employ his services, which pertain strictly to the baseball diamond.  

Management in professional sports have a unique relationship with one another which allows them to often converse about personnel and the dealings pertaining to those individuals.  Having that knowledge at their disposal paves the way for inside information to be passed along through the proper channels.  This old school way of thinking also serves as reassurance and offers the opportunity for general managers and owners to compare notes from their meetings with the player.  With such a weapon in their hat full of tricks, it is surprising that Theo Epstein negated that practice and upped the ante.  I surely hope that other teams do not follow suit and institute this new, radical tactic, for it takes away one of the most imperative elements of an individual’s life that does not have a price: privacy.