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Carl Crawford ‘Didn’t LeBron’ Tampa Bay, Never Spoke to Yankees in Offseason

Baseball fans were shocked, to say the least, when outfielder Carl Crawford signed with the Red Sox this offseason.

Most assumed that the former Rays speedster would land in New York or Anaheim, but according to Crawford, the Big Apple was never really an option.

"To be honest with you, I never talked to New York," Crawford said Wednesday morning on Dennis and Callahan. "They never offered me a contract. I never had any kind of communication with New York, so it was never an option to go to New York.

"Cliff Lee was their first choice," he added. "I didn’t want to be somebody’s backup plan. I wanted to go to a place where they wanted me just as bad as I wanted to go there."

Some disgruntled Rays fans have even compared Crawford leaving Tampa to current Heat star LeBron James leaving Cleveland last year.

"No, I didn’t LeBron them at all," said the Rays outfielder of nine seasons. "This situation was different. The thing with Tampa is I never got a contract offer from them either, so it was like I had to go. They gave me no choice. It was totally different."