How's this for a job? Try representing Sheffield

Sheff's agent used to work for Oprah, also heads Chicago's board of education

Jim Baumbach

12:14 PM EDT, July 18, 2007

As we all know by now, Gary Sheffield said some crazy stuff in his interview with HBO's "Real Sports," which finally aired last night. But overshadowed by his controversial comments about race and steroids was an amusing and telling admission by the former Yankee slugger.

"I tell myself every offseason I'm not going to say anything crazy. I'm just going to have a peaceful season," Sheffield said. Then reality hit. "... Can't do it."

You don't have to tell Rufus Williams that. He's Sheffield's agent and business manager, though if you're a baseball fan you probably knew that already. Whenever something has happened with Sheffield in recent years, Williams' name always appeared in the papers the next few days, helping to clean the mess.

Williams said he doesn't mind this. It's his job, what he gets paid for, and obviously he knew exactly what he was getting into when he agreed to represent perhaps the most controversial, outspoken player in the game.

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But, really, can you blame Williams if he rolled his eyes or let out a slight chuckle when Sheffield talked about wanting to have a "peaceful" season? Williams was sitting right there in the same room with Sheffield when he said it, and of course minutes later Sheffield provided the perfect evidence of why he can't when he accused the Yankees specifically manager Joe Torre of treating black players differently than white players.

You have to wonder whether that accusation surprised Williams. If Sheffield felt that way for a while, which he apparently has, you've got to figure he probably told Williams about it. But did the fact that Sheffield chose to go public with that accusation right then and there, to HBO, surprise him?

Williams did his best to dance around that question, because surely he knows as well as anyone that you can't allow yourself to be surprised by something Sheffield says. Because if you did, then you'd pretty much be surprised almost all the time.

"Gary and I, we're close, and we spend a lot of time together," Williams said. "We spend a lot of time talking. I don't know whether there are opinions he has that he doesn't share with me. Am I surprised by the things he say? What surprises me, or, what makes it a bit more complicated, is that Gary is a complicated guy.

"He may give you a thought that people may sometimes think or suggest that there may be there is some level of confusion or double-speak. But you just have to listen to what he's saying and then you get it, you say, 'Ah hah,' and I have never failed to have that happen."

Williams is an interesting person in his own right. He started as an accountant who rose through the ranks of Oprah Winfrey's production company to eventually become her chief financial officer. That's where he met Sheffield's wife, Deleon, who had an internship there.

"After they were married, they were looking for some financial advice, so she reached out to me and that's how we met," Williams said. He remembers initially talking over the phone with Sheffield either in 1999 or 2000, then dining with them in Chicago. He took over as Sheffield's agent after Sheffield fired Scott Boras because he didn't want to pay him the percentage cut. (Boras filed suit against Sheffield, and they are believed to be still embroiled in a legal battle.)

Even as Williams took over as Sheffield's representative, which is a full-time job on its own, he continued to take on new endeavors. He joined the Chicago board of education two years ago, and last year Mayor Richard M. Daley appointed him the board's president. It's a position he's incredibly proud of.

"This is nothing that I ever planned, or thought in my wildest dreams that I would be president of the Board of Education for the third largest school system in the nation," Williams said. It's a non-paying position that he said requires the commitment of a full-time job.

Nor did he ever plan to be the one who has to answer for Sheffield after the veteran slugged goes off on one of his rants. But Williams doesn't mind. He seems to take on the approach that he is intrigued by Sheffield's words, even if the statements don't always make sense, cancel each other out or are politically incorrect.

"He says what he thinks," Williams said. "He is in a unique position because he has a big platform. He may say some things that may not be politically correct as everyone sees it, but he shares with people openly and honestly the world as he sees it when he is asked."