As he prepared to face the Red Sox for the first time since joining the Mets, the last thing Bay wanted to talk about was any lingering feelings toward his former organization.
"If you've got any offseason questions, I'm done talking about it," Bay told Boston.com prior to Thursday's spring training matchup between Boston and New York. "I'll talk about anything else, but health-related or anything like that, I'm taking the fifth. I'm trying to move on."
Bay told the Web site that the transition to his third team in three seasons has not been a difficult one.
"It's been pretty seamless," he said. "I feel like I've been in there a lot longer than I have. Maybe you just play long enough, you play against enough guys … I've walked into a new clubhouse a lot of times before."
And as many times as he's had to get used to new teammates, though, Bay has had to let go of the old ones. Still, it was nice to see his old buddies in Port St. Lucie, Fla., before Thursday's game, which Boston won 8-2 — but he immediately shot down the idea that he needed closure after leaving Boston.
"Once I signed, once I got here, I got integrated a little bit, it's kind of been closed for me for a while," Bay said. "I didn't really need the last goodbye. I've been traded numerous times. I've done a lot of this along the way. Boston just ended up being a stop along the way, albeit a very good one."
And just to prove that he's not bitter that he and the Red Sox couldn't come to terms this offseason, Bay offered up his true feelings about the common sentiment that Boston's offense will struggle in 2010.
"I think it's ludicrous that everybody keeps talking about their offense," Bay said. "It's actually kind of baffling and almost funny to me that those guys over there have to keep answering offensive questions because I think they'll be fine."
