Did you ever see the movie Catch Me if You Can? The movie is the mostly-true story of Frank Abagnale, Jr, who, in the movie, ran away from home in the 1960s at the age of sixteen and forged his way through several years of his life, pretending to be an airline pilot, a doctor, an attorney, and a teacher. The best line of the movie, though, comes when Frank Abagnale Sr. asks his son if he knows why the Yankees always win. “Because they have Mickey Mantle?” is the younger Abagnale’s guess. “No,” responds Abagnale Sr. “It’s because the other teams can’t stop staring at those damn pinstripes.”
One of those other players, apparently, has been Mark Teixeira. The Boston 
Globe reported Saturday that the Yankees had been Teixeira’s first choice all along, that “if all things were equal, the Yankees were the place I wanted to go.” And yet Teixeira also says the Sox’s public comments on the negiotiations hurt them somewhat. How does that work? It’s no secret the Yankees have the power to outbid anyone at any time for a player they really want. Did a few statements leaked to the media really make a difference?
The comments Teixeira made about the media are a bunch of malarkey. He stated that the media involvement in the process hurt the Sox “a little bit,” but the Yankees had been the leaders before negotiations even began. Teixeira was dazzled by the pinstripes; his agent, Scott Boras, was dazzled by the dollar signs. Boras has never been opposed to negotiating through the media, as we all learned through the Manny Ramirez disaster. If Teixeira cared about the media’s knowledge of his negotiations, he was the only one.
It’s more likely, actually, that the Teixeira-Boras duo wanted the Yankees to keep quiet simply so they could use other teams, including the Red Sox and Angels, to get the Yankees to up their offers. If the Sox and Angels knew just how badly Teixeira apparently wanted to go to the Yanks, would they have kept their offers on the table? Instead, Teixeira and Boras were able to get offers from the Red Sox, Angels, Orioles, and Nationals, so the Yankees could see exactly how much they needed to pay to reel them in. That equals more money for Teixeira. And a bigger cut for Boras.
The Red Sox were never really in the running for Teixeira in the first place. Read this recap from Bats, a New York Times blog:
Boras is renowned for using one offer to try to get another team to increase its offer. It is possible the Red Sox are comfortable with an offer of eight years and more than $20 million a season, and they are calling Boras’s and Teixeira’s bluff.
If Boston has ended its pursuit of Teixeira, which seems unlikely since they have been so smitten with him, it would leave the Los Angeles Angels, the Washington Nationals and the Baltimore Orioles as the teams trying to sign him. The Yankees have not made Teixeira an offer.
This came after John Henry stated the Red Sox were obviously not in the Teixeira running anymore after hearing about Tex’s “other offers.” Why do you think Theo Epstein stated after Teixeira signed with the Yankees that he no longer wished to negotiate with Boras unless he could be sure it was on the level?
It wasn’t the media that prevented the Red Sox from landing Mark Teixeira. It was Teixeira’s fascination with pinstripes, and Boras’s ever-present obsession with money and power. Don’t be surprised if Boras even used these talks to get back at the Sox after they finally traded Manny Ramirez, and rejected Boras’s offer to keep Manny at full power in return for the Sox not taking Ramirez’s option year.
Remember, the MLB promised to look into the way Boras orchestrated the Manny debacle, and the Teixeira negotiations endeared the so-called super-agent to no one. If the MLB doesn’t write Boras’s ticket out of the game, his own stupidity just might.
