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Blame the wife! Turncoat! Turncoat!

I know I'm beating a dead horse into the ground here, but this is the last of it from me on the Tex issue, just some good insight into the bargaining process before the holidays.

According to the Boston Globe, Tex's wife, Leigh, convinced him the Yanks were the way to go:

"Two weeks before Christmas, I talked to [my wife] Leigh about it again, and we kind of decided that, hey, the Yankees are where we want to be. Cash [Brian Cashman] might want to give Leigh a hug, because when I asked her during the process, 'Where should I go, where should I go?,' she'd always say, 'I just want you to be happy.' Finally she said, 'I want you to be a Yankee,' and it was a done deal."

But we can't let him scapegoat her that much, because the 'life-long Orioles fan' also laid down this gem for the NYY glitterati:

"My dad would take me to O's games and I'd wear a Yankees hat, which wasn't too safe in Baltimore back in the '80s. But it was worth it. There's something about being a Yankee, no where you are there are Yankees fans, and I'm glad to be a Yankee today."

Oh, it continues: "In my mind, the Yankees were always the top."

The best quote from Boras: "Obviously, in my business, you're either called a shopper or a puffer; one of the two, you're going to be labeled with. "

I think it's safe to call him both.

UPDATE: Revised so you can witness Leigh Teixeira's input on the matter.

Breaking News: The Yankees have reached an agreement in principle to sign Mark Teixeira, SI.com has learned, beating out the rival Red Sox for the free-agent slugger's services.

Teixeira, who hit .308 with 33 home runs and 121 RBIs in 2008, will receive an eight-year, $180 million deal from the Yankees with a full no-trade provision.

The final four teams in the race to sign Teixeira were the Red Sox, Angels, Nationals and Yankees.

Sports Illustrated link.

UPDATE (zk): Confirmed by the NY Times:

The Yankees agreed to terms with the free agent first baseman Mark Teixeira on a long-term contract, according to a person in baseball familiar with the matter. 

UPDATE #2: According to The Associated Press, the deal is for 8 years, $180M.

UPDATE #3: MacPhail weighs in (Sun):

"We would have loved to have had the player, who appealed to us because of the special circumstances of where he's from and where we are. We diverted from our plan to try to get him," Orioles president of baseball operations Andy MacPhail said. "But at the end of the day, it was just too much to pay for one player. It would handicap our ability to go forward."

If I'm sharing something terribly corny here, sue me. I just got this in an email and thought some of you would enjoy it, though it's been done in various renditions over the years. 

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Yahoo! Sports' Big League Stew blog is one of my daily required reads. Here's an excerpt of an interview with Moose.

Q: Does Baltimore seem like a million years ago?

MM: Yes and no. When you play a long time, the seasons kind of mesh together, but the eight years in New York — now that I sit here — have flown by. For that reason,Baltimore seems like it was just yesterday. But then you think about all the things we've done in the past eight years here — trips to the playoffs — yeah, it seems like a long time ago. There's hardly anyone over there on the other side (Baltimore) — a couple of trainers and a coach or two — that I remember. Other than that, everybody's different. It was a long time ago and it was yesterday.

Q: Why don't people go to Orioles games anymore?

MM: I don't think fourth place every year really brings in the fans.

Q: But that was a place to be.

MM: It was a place to be, but when they built the new stadium, for the next five or six years, there was excitement because it was a new place to watch games and also the team was competitive. It was at or near the top. But that changed in the late '90s and it hasn't gone back since.

MM: Oh, I don't know. I didn't have anything to Compare it to back then, and now I'm older. It probably added a couple, but there's a lot smaller ballparks out there these days than Camden Yards.

Q: Do you dislike that some Orioles fans look upon you as traitorous?

MM: Traitorous, yeah [nodding head]. No. The people who grew up loving the Orioles in Baltimore, it seems like, once you go and play for that team, "Why would you ever want to leave?" When you're a player, you have to take other things into account. I had to take other things into account. It was time to try something new, so I did.

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