No. He needed him.
In the spring of 1998, O'Connell was breaking into the sports agent business. He had the backing of Orlando personal injury attorney John Morgan, but he was starting from scratch. To make ends meet, he managed a bar on weekends.
O'Connell had signed a few minor league players, but he needed that first big client, his ticket to the show.
That same spring, Tim Redding was just starting out with the Houston Astros. Assigned to the Auburn (N.Y.) Doubledays of the Class A New York-Penn League, Redding had pitched brilliantly one night when O'Connell approached him about signing.
Redding was willing to listen. But he had to catch the team bus for the two-hour trip home. Like any good agent, O'Connell jumped in his Ford Explorer and followed the bus. That night, over chicken wings and beer, they talked contracts. "Just give me a year," O'Connell said.
On the way to Redding's apartment, at the base of a wall that surrounds the Auburn Correctional Facility, Redding told O'Connell to pull over.
There are about 1,200 baseball players in the major Leagues, and about 400 registered agents.
That should mean money for everybody. The average player's salary last year was $2.8-million. The minimum a player can make is $290,000. Agents typically take 1 to 4 percent for contract work and 10 to 20 percent for marketing deals. O'Connell's standard take is 4 and 10 percent, respectively.
But this is not a level playing field.
Sports agencies and super agents such as Scott Boras have cornered much of the market. A recent survey of registered agents by ESPN.com found that fewer than 5 percent of all agents net more than $100,000 a year.