Henry: Red Sox are not X-Factor

According to the Boston Globe the Red Sox will not "be a factor" in the bidding for Mark Teixeira. The Red Sox were long believed to be the favorites for the All-Star first baseman.

Jose isn't exactly sure how he feels about this. On the one hand, if it was really going to take $200 million to sign the guy, Jose is sort of happy to let him walk, at that kind of value he would be far too appealing a target for Somali pirates. (Note: Jose is pretty sure he stole that joke from someone, but he has no recollection of who.)

On the other hand, Jose was looking forward to Teixeira coming here, so he could finally get an explanation for how the hell the "X" in his name makes a "zh" sound.

Of course, this might all be nonsense, as Sox owner John W. Henry sent word by email. Maybe he was just really, really mad about how things were going so he wrote down an angry email, with no intention of sending it, but then accidentally clicked send. That seems at least as plausible as Texiera getting $200 million from Baltimore or Washington.

The other possibility is that the Yankees have suddenly jumped into the running. This would make sense. As usual the Yankees can exceed any cash offer the Red Sox might make. Also, unlike the Red Sox, the Yankees have an open Senate seat to offer.

Oh, Jose just though of one other possibility. Maybe the word "factor" in the statement is a clue. As Jose recalls, in the early days of the comic X-Factor, the original X-Men joined together and pretended to be a group of vigilantes called X-Factor that captured mutants. After they seized a mutant, they would secretly train him and take care of him. Maybe the Red Sox have a similar plan. They are going to pretend to be anti-Teixeira, and then will capture him and secretly train him to play catcher, thereby allowing Mike Lowell and Kevin Youkilis to remain on a team including Teixeira.

Come on, it's at leastas likely as the guy actually wanting to play in Baltimore.