This local lawyer represents a different kind of sports agent
By ROBERT M. McCARTHY

In life, one occasionally meets extraordinary people - and local attorney David Pasti is one of the most remarkable. I met Dave 15 years ago when we were both representing abused and neglected children in Montgomery County Juvenile Court.

In that role, he was tremendously compassionate and competent. He also worked for the late state Senator Vic Crawford.

After we both cut back on juvenile work, I lost touch with him. I was, therefore, surprised to see him featured in the cover article in the May 26, 2002 Washington Post Magazine discussing his life as a sports agent representing baseball players.

I know Dave (while always a sports nut) to be a good family man, a traditional Christian, and a good lawyer. As sports agents tend to ooze from the same primordial swamp that produces used car salesmen, I was surprised to see him in that field.

Needless to say, Dave is a different kind of sports agent. He seeks out athletes who share his family values, are well-rounded and make a positive contribution to the community.

In addition to athletic development, his emphasis is on character and integrity.

His point of view has obvious appeal to the first advisers of young athletes, their parents. In fact, one of his most successful recruiting strategies is to simply give the prospective clients' parents the phone number of parents of his current players. One of these parents noted, ``Dave is always looking out for the best interests of our son."

His views remind me of another sports agent, Mike Trainor. Several years ago, I met a fat boxing promoter angrily chewing on his fat cigar, complaining that Trainor - the sports agent for a young boxer named Sugar Ray Leonard - was "an idiot."

Trainor's crime, in the promoter's eyes, was that he arranged for Leonard to pay off his initial fight backers after only one bout, freeing the young athlete to control his own personal and professional life. It also allowed Leonard to be active in community service, and be his own type of role model to youth.

That angry sports promoter, and most sports agents, believe that professional athletes are to be controlled, used, abused, profited from - and then thrown away, instead of being treated as human beings.

That promoter would not understand Dave Pasti either. But Dave's philosophy seems to work, as his clients are currently with various professional baseball organizations, including the Philadelphia Phillies and the Seattle Mariners. Dave is also advising several players in the baseball draft this year, which is scheduled for the first week of June.

Dave currently shuttles between the spring training camps of his pro clients, minor league games to groom his younger athletes, and various high school and college games to scout new prospects. He is also lecturing at the Sports Lawyers Association Conference in Toronto in May.

Dave says he owes his success in life to his faith, his family, his law practice, and now as a sports agent, to the support of his wife, Marie, the work-at-home mother of their three children. In fact, Marie is probably the best ``catch" Dave has made in his entire sports career.

Any local athlete who dreams of playing in the major leagues could do much worse than having a competent, successful, attorney with firm moral dimensions like Dave Pasti represent them. (They can check out Dave's Web site at www.lawofficesofdavidpasti.com.

Sometimes, when I am in the bowels of divorce court, or preparing to cross-examine some child molester, I think of Dave sitting in the ball park bleachers, eating hot dogs and working on his tan, trying to decide which of several baseball games he will attend next. And he's getting paid for it.
If I sound like I am completely envious, I am. But great things sometimes happen to good people, and Dave Pasti is certainly one of them.

Bethesda resident Robert M. McCarthy has practiced law in Montgomery County since 1981. His Web site is www.robertmccarthylaw.com.