Teixeira fesses up

Much of the reporting immediately after word broke that Mark Teixeira would sign with the Yankees treated this development as a hard-to-figure and unexplainable mystery.

In fact, there were many clues -- such as how Teixeira grew up revering Don Mattingly, and how he'd previously had a bad encounter with the Sox -- that he'd sign with the Evils.

During his formal unveiling today, the ballplayer acknowledged as much (which is more than Scott Boras did with a putrid interview yesterday on the MLB Network):

From the Globe's Extra Bases blog:

On whether he planned on signing with the Yankees all along:

"The whole process was confusing. Sometimes I'd tell Scott to stop calling me, then I'd call him five times a day saying, 'Tell me what you know!' 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. Once we got the contract figured out, it was a no-brainer for me."

It's interesting to note that the Red Sox' visit to Teixeira's home in Texas came on Dec. 18, which is just a week before Christmas. If Teixeira's comments can be taken at face value, he made his mind up a week before the Sox' trip.