Sox Offenders

SOX OFFENDERS:
ET TU, JOHNNY?
by Red & Denton

Just when the signing of Josh Beckett got us thinking the Era of Good Feeling was back upon us Sox fans, the last few weeks of the year have seen the wheels fall off the wagon faster than clothes off the Saugeen Stripper [oh, Google her photos, my friends... they're out there]. We were so quick to shove Edgah's hapless ass out the door we offered to pick up a good chunk of the tab, then apparently forgot we had no on left to play shortstop. Then we let lefty specialist Mike Myers go, reasoning that we still had Chad Bradford... just a couple days before cutting Bradford loose as well. Finally, we endured "l'affaire Damon," in which Boston's own cult hero and resident long-hair escaped to New York.

That last point has provided some good hot stove fodder for the past several days, with people stopping randomly in the streets to curse Damon and Lucchino and the government and Nicole Richie and anyone else who may have had any remote attachment to this madness. Fact is, though, Damon was a free agent; able to go anywhere he or his fine-ass wife wanted if the Sox didn't make it worth his while to stick around. Now he's gone, leaving us with two more holes to fill at the top of the order and in centerfield. And in this issue's column, we figgered we'd argue as to whether Johnny's departure is more blessing or curse. Merry fuckin' Christmas.

We're gonna miss him: Say what you will about Damon -- he chased the money, he throws like a girl, he makes Rain Man sound like Tim Russert -- you can't deny the impact he's had on the Sox over the past couple seasons. For one thing, we're gonna sorely miss his bat at the top of the order. Remember that tactic a couple years back of stocking the middle of our line-up with pure beef like Manny, Carl Everett, and -- gasp -- Dante Bichette? Well the RBIs didn't quite roll out of Yawkey Way like sausages because someone forgot that we'd need a few table setters to actually be on base when the big guns came up. That all changed a few years later when we signed Damon. Here was a true leadoff hitter -- the kinda guy who made pitchers earn their fat paychecks, fouling off pitch after pitch, always seeming to find a hole, and presenting a true base stealing threat once he'd made it on.

Yeah, his arm was suspect. But he played hard and he played hurt. Compare his track record to the likes of Trot Nixon, who's pretty much guaranteed at least one DL stint each season with a pulled ass, if not more, and on top of all that, gives you nothing at the plate. That grisly play in the 2003 ALDS where he ran headfirst into Damien Jackson is often cited as illustration of Damon's unsettling recklessness, but I prefer to see it as a guy who was hungry to keep his team alive in the most important game of the year.

On a purely business level, the guy was also the face of the franchise. He loved the rockstar persona he cultivated during his brief tenure here, always had a snappy quote for the camera, and faced the music when he'd cost us a game or made a bonehead play. On the one had, he had sacks of dough and a white-hot ex-stripper wife; on the other, he wouldn't have seemed out of place hanging out at Chili's, throwing back Miller Lites with a pack of contractors from Southie while simultaneously trying to feel up some high school chicks. It seems painfully apparent that the front office either figgered there were no other suitors for Damon's talent, or had simply resigned themselves to inflexibility where his salary was concerned. Whatever the case, Larry, Jed and Ben sure looked like a bunch of smacked asses when all was said and done.
Good riddance: First of all, if anyone in RSN didn’t see this coming, what the Hell have you been doing? Remember a few years ago when the self-proclaimed greatest lead-off hitter in the game was with Oakland? He finished the 2001 season with a .256 batting average and a .324 OBP and became a free agent. Lofty numbers like that (note the sarcasm) enticed Digital Dan to sign Damon to a 4-year, big-money contract. After back-to-back career years and another ride on the free agent train, did you really think he’d stick around for anything less than top dollar?

Second, his arm is not “suspect” it is has been tried and found guilty. Of sucking in the first degree. By year three of this deal, he’ll be rolling the ball to Matsui to make the throw to the cut-off man. Year four, he’ll be running the ball in and handing it to A-Rod. That is if one of his patented “run-face-first-into-the-wall-with-abso-fucking-lutely-no-chance-of-getting-leather-on-ball” moves doesn’t leave him paralyzed in his three remaining limbs.

Here is the only fact you need to know: with Manny and Ortiz cleaning up, you can lead-off with Johnny Pesky and he’ll score 100 runs. And probably steal as many bases as Damon.

Johnny Damon may have been the “face of the franchise” but what’s in a face? That’s like saying Michelle Damon is the face of the baseball wives. She may be the tits and ass of the wives, but until I made a conscious effort to find it, I didn’t know she had a face. The franchise will go on. They still have the mouth of the franchise in Schilling, the soul of the franchise in Tek, and the heart of the franchise in Tim Wakefield (who, by the way, was in the Jimmy Fund Clinic on Friday giving $100 gift cards and signed shirts and hats – pink for girls, blue for boys – to every patient). Not to mention the man himself, Big Papi.

Adios, Johnny. Take your 52 million to the Big City and drop us a line when you realize you’re just another over-paid guy in pinstripes, in lock-step with the rest of Steinbrenner’s minions, and Michelle is just another ex-stripper baseball wife. You should have learned from the likes of Bruce Hurst and Mo Vaughn, instead of following them out of town. Boston loved you, New York will only tolerate you.