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On the night before Thanksgiving in 1998, the Red Sox were hit with a double whammy: Mo Vaughn signed a free-agent contract with the Angels and Bernie Williams -- thought to be signed, sealed and delivered to the Sox at seven years and approximately $90 million -- spurned Boston and decided to return to the Yankees. This was after Albert Belle had rejected their overtures and agreed to a five-year deal with Baltimore.

I thought of that last night as I watched Bernie Williams, who now has barely enough strength in his arm to reach the infield with his throws and who compounds his defensive problems with an astounding lack of range and a puzzling tendency toward nonchalance, played a pair of singles into doubles against Tampa Bay. And it's not like he's compensating offensively; he's presently hitting .256 with a .728 OPS.

For this, the Yankees are paying $12 million.

That's more value, however, than the Mets are getting. They're paying $2 million for Mo Vaughn to do absolutely nothing. Which is better than last year, when they paid him $18 million to do absolutely nothing. In fact, from 2001 to today, Mo Vaughn has pocketed $60 million. In that time, he's had 566 at-bats and batted .249, with 29 homers and 87 RBI.

And even that is more bang for the buck than the Orioles got from Belle, who was forced to retire after the 2000 season because of a degenerative hip condition but still received about $37 million during the years 2001-03.

All this is instructive because the Red Sox, and every other team, annually face this very decision -- what sort of offer do we make to free agents, both our own and those from other teams? Last year, the Sox lost Pedro Martinez and Derek Lowe because they got outbid not just in amount of money offered, but also in length of contract. This year Johnny Damon is already talking publicly about wanting a four-year deal (and this morning he added that if he leaves Boston, he'll call some of his current teammates and see if he can't convince them to join him wherever he winds up). And then there's the case of David Ortiz, whose contract expires in two years and who's going to be looking for something big, both in terms of years and numbers, when it does.

The temptation, especially when you're winning, is to give the guys what they want . . . and there's plenty of public pressure to do just that. There was last winter, with Pedro and Lowe, and when the Sox were struggling at the beginning of this season there was a lot of talk about how they'd gutted their pitching staff by being cheap. But the true cost of a free-agent contract doesn't come when you negotiate it, or in the early years; it comes at the end, when God only knows what you'll be paying for. Had the Sox "won" the free-agent battle for Bernie Williams or Mo Vaughn or Albert Belle in 1998, it's safe to say a World Series banner would not be flying over Fenway Park today. Williams was a shell of his former self in 2004, and Vaughn and Belle weren't playing at all, yet they would have eaten up so much of the payroll that the Sox wouldn't have had the funds to acquire some of the players who helped them win . . . like Curt Schilling, for example.

I don't envy any general manager on this issue, but it's interesting to think about. Especially now, because now -- when we can actually see the ghost of Bernie Williams attempting to play center field -- is when the downside of long-term contracts is most obvious.

I'm Art Martone.

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