For $52 million over 4 years, Johnny Damon’s a Yankee
Damon dons new duds in New York
After Roger Clemens fled for Canada in 1996, I lost the capacity to be surprised/wounded/outraged/enraged by any athlete’s departure from Boston…. Nineteen out of 20 times, I realized that athletes are loyal to dollar signs and that’s about it. That’s just the way it is. Two years later, when Mo Vaughn signed with the Angels and fans were alternately blaming Mo and Red Sox GM Dan Duquette. On WEEI, drive-time host Glenn Ordway would let them finish their rants, then grumble into his microphone, “It’s ALLLLLLLLL-ways about the money.”
How many of us wouldn’t do exactly the same thing that Johnny Damon did? Given the nasty, brutish, and short tenure of the careers of most professional athletes, why wouldn’t an athlete take as much as he could get wherever he could get it? That Damon is getting it with the New York Yankees is certainly galling to those of us who detest the Yankees and everything they stand for, but $52 million? Over four years? Hell, yes…where do I sign?
Fans of the Boston Red Sox might just now be getting over their collective apoplexy. To lose Damon, one of the most popular Red Sox players, to the hated Yankees must be like having your wife tell you that she’s decided that, after several years with you, she’s decided that she’d be better off becoming a lesbian. WTF??
To maintain a degree of perspective here, it might be helpful to remind ourselves that athletes and fans approach the same issue from diametrically opposed viewpoints. For fans, it’s all about loyalty. Most of us grow up learning what it means to be a fan of one team, and we live and die with the team as their fortunes rise and fall. For athletes, whose careers may only last a matter of a few years, it’s about maximizing earning power in the limited time frame allotted them. Hey, if I have to play in East Bumfuck, but I’m being paid millions to do it, I think I’ll suck it up. After my career is over, THEN I’ll go home to Malibu. Hey, it could be worse; you could have to play in Cleveland.
Go ahead, boo Johnny Damon if it makes you feel better. Maybe he won’t look good in pinstripes. Regardless, he’s going to be laughing all the way to the bank.
