CHICAGO — Mark Teixeira to the Yankees?

Ho, ho, ho.

This is going to be fun to watch.

Teixeira, along with fellow newcomers CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett, will carry the Yankees to a World Series championship in the first season at the new Yankee Stadium or be part of the most disappointing team in baseball history. There's no other way for this to turn out.

It will be a calculated, heavily leveraged success or the kind of failure that explodes and takes careers with it, perhaps starting with unproven manager Joe Girardi and ending with highly respected general manager Brian Cashman.

You can't have the four biggest contracts in your sport and expect many "attaboys" for coming close. The Yankees always have a target on their back, but it has never been bigger than it will be in 2009.

Teixeira, a switch-hitting slugger who joins the right-handed-hitting Alex Rodriguez in the middle of the order, had seemed bound for Boston. But the Red Sox failed to get him signed after a Dec. 18 trip to his home in Dallas. It turned out they weren't as desperate to counter the Yankees' addition of Sabathia and Burnett as agent Scott Boras figured they would be.

With Washington and Baltimore trying to land Teixeira, the Yankees ultimately couldn't help themselves. He was there for the taking, and they took him — to the tune of eight years and $180 million.

According to New York baseball oracle Murray Chass, Teixeira simply didn't want to play in Boston, and his wife didn't want him to either. He preferred New York, and Boras got him the chance to join the Yankees, where he will become what he seems to want to be: a supporting actor paid like a leading man.

Will Teixeira help the Yankees win? He should if he matches his 2008 totals, put up between Atlanta and the Los Angeles Angels: .308, 33 home runs, 41 doubles, 121 RBIs. But in his first six seasons he has never had an impact on a team even reaching the playoffs, let alone winning under the pressure of October.

Jim Kaat, the great pitcher who broadcasts games for the Yankees, believes it takes up to a season for Yankee newcomers to hit their stride in New York.

"Most seem to take a little while to get accustomed to the seventh game of the World Series urgency that goes with playing for the Yankees," Kaat wrote in a YES Network blog.

"The tendency is to try too hard to justify the money they are receiving. With the kind of over-the-top money paid out in this current economy, a lot is going to be expected, and a slow start for any of the recent big three ... will not be tolerated by Yankee fans."

Cashman committed a combined $423.5 million for Teixeira, Sabathia and Burnett. Brewers owner Mark Attanasio immediately called for a salary cap. The signings mean the Yankees' bill for revenue sharing and payroll taxes will increase to about $150 million next season from $110 million.

The saving grace for the sport is that games are still won and lost with timely hits and execution on the field, not by throwing money at problems.