Though I’ve yet to hear the Mets’ eagerness to trade Kris Benson had anything to do with his wife’s fledgling career as a Z-list pinup, Anna Benson obviously has access to information that I don’t. From the New York Daily News’ Adam Rubin.
“We would never, ever have signed with New York if they had said they were going to trade us,” said Anna Benson, 29. “I was Miss [Politically Correct] for the Mets the entire time I was there.
“I have no deal with Playboy,” she said, adding that talks crumbled last month over money.
The pinup model also blasted the team for signing Carlos Delgado, who she suggested is unpatriotic because he has, in the past, refused to stand for the playing of “God Bless America.”
“How are they going to sit there and say it’s so controversial when they sign someone like Delgado, who turns his back on our flag?” Anna Benson said.
Mets brass have acknowledged trying to move Kris Benson and his $7.5 million salary, and insiders say management is uncomfortable with the prospect of Anna Benson posing nude for Playboy.
But a team spokesman shot down the trade rumors and insisted there would be no ruffled feathers in Flushing over a Playboy pictorial.
“We do not make moves based on anything the players’ wives do,” said Mets spokesman Jay Horwitz. “We know she’s trying to build a career for herself and we wish her well.”
But Anna Benson angrily called the Mets out for saying they planned to build the team around him when they inked the free agent to a deal last year.
“They wanted [veteran pitcher] Tommy [Glavine] to school him, and then they turn around and trade us?” she asked. “The whole thing is upsetting to everybody.”
The hot-under-the-collar hottie says she’s also angry because the couple came to New York, in part, to help 9/11 charities. Some $1 million in Kris Benson’s contract is earmarked for charitable donations.
“We wanted to help the city because of 9/11,” Anna Benson said. “We specifically did it for New York, and then they turn around and trade us? I just don’t understand.”
I am a little curious exactly what Tom Glavine has been schooling Kris Benson in — doesn’t seem like facial resemblance is the sort of thing that needs to be taught. But I’m willing to take the Mets at their word — if they’re trying to free up salary for another deal and have now come to the conclusion they overpaid for Benson prior to 2005, that’s a legitimate baseball decision.