Okay, confession time.

I'm sick of hearing about the money.

Yeah, yeah, I know it's all about the money.

But it's been four weeks now since the Red Sox doled out 51 million smackeroos for the right to negotiate with Daisuke Matsuzaka. Not sign him, mind you. Negotiate with him. $51 million. Think about that for a second.

So it's been four weeks of dealing with the odious Scott Boras, the uber agent. Four weeks of having the negotiations played out in public as if it's our national policy in Iraq. Four weeks of a media blitz that would make you think that Boston might fall off into the harbor if Matsuzaka were somehow not signed.

Enough.

Two days ago, it was the news that Larry and Theo had flown out to the West Coast to try and expedite the deal, going out to Boras's turf so to speak. (You think college recruiting is sleazy? This is having to recruit someone you are willing to pay millions of dollars. It almost defies belief.)

Yesterday, it was Sox owner John Henry saying that they all had gotten on the plane together in L.A., the inference being that a deal was near, and we could finally will our beating hearts to be still. Then later in the day we heard that NESN was tracking the flight across the country.

Have you had enough yet?

I sure have.

Maybe it's because I came of age in a different era, one where the money wasn't in everyone's face all the time, one in which we rarely knew what athletes made, and didn't care. One in which there were no luxury boxes, and you didn't feel like someone's hand was in your wallet when you went to the ballpark. One in which there wasn't the daily diary of what players make, a Hot Stove League that's become all about commerce, something that belongs in the business section.

Maybe it's because we live in a country where the difference between the haves and the have-nots seems to grow by the day, a society where more and more it's about what you can buy, whether it's the newest iPod, or a Japanese pitcher.

And if you can't afford the price?

In the real world, you go to the bargain basement, a wallflower at the national orgy of excess. In the baseball world, you become the Kansas City Royals. Or the Pittsburgh Pirates, or any of the other so-called small market teams who are out of the pennant race before spring training starts, all the teams that no longer count in a baseball world that's an uneven playing field.

It's more than just what happens on the field, though.

The money being thrown around is an almost daily reminder of distorted values, a society's priorities as out of whack as Major League Baseball has become. A society that pays nurses and teachers in a year about what Manny makes for one game. A society that tells kids to do well in school and plan for the future, then pays athletes and entertainers outlandish sums of money, and wonders why so many kids seem lost, chasing after all the wrong dreams.

And, yeah, I know that it's the marketplace, and, yeah, I know that it's no different than the entertainment industry. But that doesn't make it any less obnoxious.

And I know the world isn't going back to the way it once was, back when what a player made was almost irrelevant certainly wasn't something that was constantly in the sports page. Baseball is all about money. It trumps talent evaluation. It trumps shrewd management. It trumps everything. It's the reason why Fenway Park has become the new baseball shrine, the reason why the Sox are now as trendy as pink hats in the grandstand.

The rich teams do well; the poor ones don't. You can almost take it to the bank.

And I have no doubt this Matsuzaka soap opera will get resolved, Boras or no Boras, for it's in everyone's best interest to get it done. Nor do I have any doubt that Matsuzaka will make the Red Sox better, the potential to be the kind of front-of-the-rotation starter that general managers would mortgage their mothers for. The kind of potential that's going to cost the Red Sox a boatload of millions.

Truth be told, though, it just makes my eyes glaze over. Seventy two million for J.D. Drew. Thirty six million for Julio Lugo. The world and all its gold for Matsuzaka. On and on it goes, as ticket prices get more expensive, games on cable get more expensive, it all gets more expensive, and if you question it you're just a lonely voice crying in the wilderness, as irrelevant as a middle reliever who can't throw strikes.

Don't misunderstand.

I still love the games, love the theater that surrounds them.

It's the money I'm sick of.

breynold@projo.com / (401) 277-7340