Thank Cash for Tex

From Kat O’Brien (Newsday):

“Teixeira never was really an option,” Cashman said. “It was something I kept pushing, but it was not really being accepted by above me . . . I guess persistence paid off. I knocked on that door, I guess, just enough that someone finally answered. Hal really gave me the OK to pursue it over a few-day period. And at that point, I still thought the Red Sox were getting him.”
He wasn’t the only one who didn’t think Teixeira would be a Yankee. Damon, who like Teixeira is a Scott Boras client, made lobbying calls to A.J. Burnett and CC Sabathia, earning the unofficial title of chief recruiter. Damon, however, never reached out to Teixeira because he thought there was no chance of getting him.

But Cashman met with Teixeira, Boras and Boras’ right-hand man, Mike Fiore, in Maryland Dec. 4. That was just before the winter meetings and before the Yankees landed either CC Sabathia or A.J. Burnett. And even Cashman says the visit was almost a ploy.

“When I met with him, I was doing it more to get leverage on CC,” he said. “We weren’t playing possum on purpose. We were actually out of it.”

But Cashman left that meeting even more enamored of Teixeira. And once the Yankees got Sabathia and Burnett, followed by an apparent breakdown of negotiations between the Red Sox and Teixeira’s camp, Cashman sold the Steinbrenners on getting the first baseman.

Perhaps one argument that swayed them was these words from Cashman about the Red Sox: “I know you’re not interested, but they’re going to get this guy. He’s going to fall in their lap, and he’s so perfect for us.”

Cashman then went on to say the following about Tex:

“I remember telling ownership this is a guy that is the all-around, All-American- type boy that he is talented but he will never make a mistake with the media with a soundbite. He’ll always represent himself and the organization in the right way. If you could take them all like that, that’s the way you would want them.”

Props to Cashman and Hal, obviously, but I think you have to give an assist to Alex Rodriguez on this, too. In terms of media representation, Teixeira is the anti-A-Rod. He’s Derek Jeter at first base and the team was happy to hang their hat on another slugger that wasn’t as enigmatic and controversial.