As if any Oriole fan needed additional intrigue with the Mark Teixeira sweepstakes, here’s some more…
While up watching SNL and trying to kill some time this evening, I wandered to boston.com and read a short little post via Chad Finn’s blog on their website about an appearance that the slugger made during the Georgia Tech/Miami Game on ESPN this past Thursday.
You probably don’t care about the beatdown Georgia Tech’s triple option handed Miami last night, but the broadcast, at least at one point, likely would have piqued your interest.
Mark Teixeira attended the game, watching from the sidelines with fellow free agent and Scott Boras client Jason Varitek. ESPN’s Erin Andrews chatted with Teixeira, who said his hope is to choose a team and sign a contract by Christmas.
“I don’t want to put a timetable on it, but Christmas morning,” said Teixeira, who, like Varitek, was an All-American at Georgia Tech. “I want to know where I’m going to be for the next couple of years, so hopefully, by Christmas it will be done.”
And later:
“I want to go where I can win and my family is happy,” Teixeira said. “Whether it’s the East Coast — that’s where I’m from — but I loved playing in Anaheim, too, so we’ll see what happens.”
I don’t know what to think about the above series of paragraphs, but I’m still not totally convinced Mark knows where he’s even going to play next year.
I’d like to be confident that he’s coming to the Orioles — most everyone knows I’m not — but I think he’ll still go to where he can make a fortune and have a chance to win.
Of course, Ken Rosenthal of FoxSports.com disproves my point.
It still appears doubtful that Teixeira will choose the Nationals or even his hometown Orioles when he has better options. But another Boras client, Alex Rodriguez, stunned the baseball world by joining the then-lowly Rangers as a free agent after the 2000 season.
Teixeira, 28, could justify signing with the Nationals by saying he wanted to be the face of an emerging franchise in the nation’s capital. He could rationalize signing with the Orioles by saying he wanted to spark their revival at a time when the team finally is starting to develop young talent.
Right now, that eliminates Washington and Baltimore — in my honest opinion — however, anything can happen.
