Blez: There have been different reports about what happened in the negotiations between you and Justin Smoak. Smoak's turned into a great prospect. Baseball America reported that he wanted $1 million and that you were offering $950,000. Was it ever really that close?

Beane: (Laughs) No, no. I'll try and give you the Reader's Digest answer. We never even made an offer to Justin. In fact, when we drafted him, we drafted him late. He was projected to go in the first or comp round. To his credit, he made it quite clear the amount of money that he was interested in signing for. We just said we'd draft the kid late just in case there was some point during the summer he changed his mind. Quite frankly, I'd spoken to him and he's a great kid. I know his coach a little bit at South Carolina and we at no point were trying to bribe him out of his scholarship because it's a great university. To put it plainly, we said we look forward to seeing you in three years, go out and have a great career. In fact, Justin and I had a conversation at one point even though he had a number that he wanted he was very committed to going to South Carolina and I congratulated him on that decision. We never even made an offer. That was total fiction. I can assure you that if we were between $950,000 and a million dollars we would've found a way to get it done. I was a proponent of the kid going to school. He was committed and he's a South Carolina kid. I think some of the college programs are a great developer of talent and I'm a big fan of these kids going and coming out three years later.