Mark Teixeira enjoys the moment as he’s introduce as the newest Yankee during a news conference yesterday at Yankee Stadium. He said even before the Red Sox visited him, he wanted to be a Yankee.

AP / Kathy Willens

As Mark Teixeira stood at the podium in Yankee Stadium and curved the brim of his new Yankees cap, it seemed like the histrionics between the first baseman and the Red Sox that dominated the month of December had never happened.

Those dramatic negotiations with the Sox, that seemed so close to a positive conclusion just before Christmas? In Teixeira’s new version of the events, there was only one team that was ever in the race, and that was the Yankees.

“In the back of my mind, the Yankees were always the top,” Teixeira said at his introductory news conference yesterday afternoon.

In the weeks before Teixeira signed with the Yankees, Red Sox brass flew to Teixeira’s Dallas-area home, hoping to sign him. Teixeira’s agent, Scott Boras, said that Boston’s offer, believed to be eight years and roughly $165 million, wouldn’t match the others on the table. Owner John Henry pulled back, and the Red Sox said they wouldn’t bid more, in a back-and-forth that was largely seen as gamesmanship by both sides.

A week later, the Red Sox were seemingly on the verge of signing Teixeira to an eight-year, $170-million deal, when the 28-year-old’s agent suddenly started asking for more time, leading the Red Sox to believe that Boras would go to the Yankees seeking more money. Teixeira signed his eight-year, $180-million deal with New York hours later.

But according to Teixeira yesterday, the decision had been made a full week before the trip to Texas, and the Red Sox were always on the outside looking in.

“My wife and I decided two weeks before Christmas the Yankees are where we want to be,” he said.

Hearing that, it must be hard for the Red Sox brass to shake the feeling that they were used, and were only in the bidding to drive up the price for the Yankees.

The man who has been cast as the villain in these talks, Boras, told the Boston Globe after the news conference that any Red Sox complaints are, in effect, sour grapes.

“I think whenever you represent a free-agent player and he signs somewhere, part of the process is one where everyone is going to say they were strung along,” Boras said, adding after, “As far as Boston goes, I think Boston knows they got good-faith proposals and they were given proposals, which means, if accepted, the player would have signed the proposal. If teams reject them, they cannot in any way suggest they were strung along.”

Boston’s front office may disagree. Team president Larry Lucchino could not be reached for comment yesterday, but it’s a fair bet that the Red Sox don’t view the situation the same way Boras does.

So is Teixeira serious? Was the decision really made before the Red Sox even flew to Texas? Or is Teixeira simply making nice and attempting to win over his new fan base?

Teixeira spent much of his 10-minute question-and-answer session talking about his longtime love for the Yankees, how his favorite player had always been Yankees first baseman Don Mattingly, and how the Baltimore native would attend Orioles games wearing a Yankees hat.

“I would wear a Yankees hat. Back in the ’80s and early ’90s, that wasn’t a safe thing to do in Baltimore,” Teixeira joked.

He emphasized the role his family played in the process, repeatedly stating that it was his wife, Leigh, who told him to sign with the Yankees. He noted specifically that his sister lived across the Hudson in Hoboken, N.J., and that his Maryland-area family can now easily come see him play.

The perception was that the Yankees were never serious bidders for Teixeira, but general manager Brian Cashman, said yesterday that the team always had an interest, and that after they met with Teixeira before the winter meetings, he had a good feeling that Teixeira would be a Yankee in the end. At the same time, owners Hank and Hal Steinbrenner were constantly pressing Cashman to think about Teixeira, even though the team’s focus was on pitching at the time.

“All winter long we talked about the pitching, the pitching, the pitching … [the Steinbrenners] were constantly mentioning Mark Teixeira, MT, as a big interest for us. And with good reason,” Cashman said.

Teixeira, in fact, also credited the Yankees’ signings of pitchers CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett as dramatically influencing his own desire to come to New York. That contrasts somewhat with his statements that the Yankees were always his preferred destination.

Regardless, now that Teixeira has taken over Jason Giambi’s number 25, his first-base position, and his Yankees dollars, he is there to stay, and he is well on his way to rewriting the history books to make it seem as if he grew up on 161st Street in the Bronx, sitting on Dave Winfield’s knee.

“Once it really hit me that I was going to be a Yankee, it was just pure joy. It hit me: the excitement of being a Yankee. … I can be a Yankee? There’s nothing better.”

One has to wonder whether he would have said much the same things if the news conference were on Yawkey Way.

dbarbari@projo.com