Some day Johnny Damon will just go away

Once Johnny said "I've always been a Yankee". Â If this is true, he should understand why people want to boo him.

I have so much I plan to write about. I still have to share my “Welcome Home Red Sox” event experience with you as well as my thoughts on the new video boards and Manny Ramirez (that last one might have to include copious amounts of wine). But time is short today and I’m being bombarded, yet again, with “Don’t boo Johnny Damon” pleas and orders and I can’t let it go because people won’t let me.

If my memory serves, I have booed Johnny Damon on one occasion…the first time I saw him with the Yankees in Fenway Park (it wasn’t the first game but it was that first series).  I’d do it again in an instant.  There might have been other times but I don’t recall them, especially not them in any serious way (heck, I don’t even boo Derek Jeter most of the time).  But that first time?  You bet your ass I booed him.

I have mapped out in great detail how strongly I feel about Johnny Damon.  (And those posts only cover 2010 and 2011…dig through the archives and you’ll find many more.)  SO this entry isn’t to rehash my belief that he’s a liar who only cares about how much money he makes and how he “looks” to the fans.  Regardless of how he turned his back on the fans of the Red Sox, he still shows up like a bad penny begging us to love him again.

Now I couldn’t care less if you are at Fenway tonight and decide to cheer for Johnny.  Have at it.  But I will also be at Fenway tonight and won’t be joining you.  I have no idea if I’ll boo.  It’s something that will either come naturally or won’t happen at all, but there is no way I will be cheering him.  I did my cheering for him.   Plenty of it as a matter of fact. And that is kind of where my issue is.

I, and every other living Red Sox fan, gave Johnny Damon his propers when he was in Boston.  There is no obligation to give the man another ovation.  Absolutely none.  Not only did he flat-out lie when he said he wouldn’t be swayed by the Yankees going after him, but he never shut his trap after that.  He said he was “always a Yankee” and winning a World Series with the Yankees was “the most amazing thing <he> experienced.”   I won’t rehash it all again. Check out the above links.

Now, sure, you can argue that players say things in the moment of excitement and we shouldn’t hold them to what they say and I will say good for you for being that kind of person but I’m not and many others aren’t and to be told we need to “get a life” and are “angry and bitter” by the likes of Peter Abraham (who gets paid to insult his readers) is preposterous.  You can’t make your living off the passion of sports fans and then insult them when their passions show through.  If we didn’t care about the Red Sox Peter Abraham and others of his ilk would be out of work.

Me?  I don’t get paid.  If people stopped visiting my blog I’d still be here talking to myself just like I was in the beginning.  But I like the traffic and the readers and the kind folks who visit my blog so I try, very much, to not insult them when they express their opinions, even if they differ with mine.  All I have riding on the blog is the enjoyment I get out of it.  It boggles my mind that professional sports writers think they should be able to tell fans what to do and insult them if they don’t do it.

The bottom line is that it doesn’t matter if you boo or cheer Johnny Damon this week so don’t let people intimidate you or embarrass you to go one way or the other.  The Red Sox don’t care what you do, Johnny will still get paid by the Rays either way, and NO ONE IN THE FREE WORLD GIVES A RAT’S HINEY IF YOU CHOOSE TO BOO HIM (except him, Peter Abraham and a handful of others).

I do have a suggestion, though, since you didn’t ask.  I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again:  How about neither?  How about cheering your own team and supporting them through their struggles and just ignoring the fact that Johnny Damon even exists for these next three days?  No cheering, no booing, just silence.  If you ask me, that’s what he really deserves.