Mookie Betts Thought He'd Be With the Red Sox For Life

Mookie Betts is a very high-level Major League Baseball player. Some might point to his two World Series rings, five Gold Gloves, four Silver Sluggers and one MVP award to make that case. If you have a player like that you should do whatever you can to keep him. The Boston Red Sox did not, despite the fact that Betts thought he would be in Boston for his entire career. Via GQ:

"Betts thought he’d be with the Sox for life, and says he loved his time there—he and Bri had begun looking at new houses before the trade. But he isn’t sentimental about the bonds between player and team. The Red Sox “didn't owe me anything; I didn't owe them anything. The city didn't owe me anything; I didn't owe the city anything. We did what we were supposed to do. And at that point,” he says, “it's a business.” The Sox couldn’t—or just wouldn’t—pay him what he knew he was worth. So he wound up with a team that could."

That is just a brutal paragraph for anyone who roots for the Red Sox to read. For the rest of us, it's pretty funny. All the Red Sox had to do was continue to spend like they were the Red Sox and they'd have one of the best players in baseball locked up for the next decade.

Instead, the Dodgers made them look like the Pirates. Meanwhile, the Fenway Sports Group remains one of the richest sports conglomerates in the world, worth more than $6.6 billion. Imagine what they could be worth if the Red Sox weren't the worst team in the AL East.