Johnny Damon: Villain or Businessman?

Well, the Johnny Damon saga has ended here in Boston.

He is staying with the Tigers.

I, for one, am glad. Not for the fact that he’s staying with Detroit, but for the fact that I don’t need to hear about it anymore. The absolute foolishness of “Red Sox Nation” is absolutely staggering. It sometimes makes me ashamed to be a Red Sox fan.

Let’s look at this step by step, shall we?

First, you had the announcement of the possible trade (or waiver claim as the case may be). You had the requisite shock and awe by the fan base. This, of course, is not to be confused with the giddiness of Yankee fans by the whiff of desperation they detected coming from Boston with this announcement.

Red Sox fans truly didn’t know what to think. They had spent the last five seasons tearing him down for his supposed betrayal and were now close to having him rejoin the team. It’s a sticky situation.

During the 48 hour period in which Damon had been mulling over his options, Red Sox fans we’re trying to reconcile their feelings. I heard a few people say that he would be “just what the Sox are looking for.”

Maybe he wasn’t the traitorous scumbag everyone was making him out to be, maybe he was the sparkplug for another pennant run.

“Red Sox Nation” was close to lining up to buy their Damon jerseys and planning a Duck Boat parade through downtown that would mess with my commute.

Finally, word came out that Damon would not be coming to Boston.

It was like someone took away Keith Olbermann’s meds, with amount of inane vitriol that spewed forth. He was once again the traitor he always was. The fans started thanking God, since he would have been horrible for this team. All was now right with the world.

Seriously?

The swing from hatred, to rationalization, back to hatred in this 48 hour period was truly astounding. I never understood the hatred. His move to the Yankees was not done as a middle finger to Red Sox fans.

It was done for the money!

I can’t believe how many people took that as a personal affront. It’s not like he came over to your house, punched your mom in the face, took a crap on your bed, and poured sugar in your gas tank on the way out of town.

He went to a competitor who was offering more money for his services. If you leave your job for another job at a competing company for more money, are you a villainous traitor who deserves to rot in hell for all eternity? No!

Baseball is a business.

Like any right minded employee, Damon wanted to earn the maximum amount of money his skill set would bring. I cannot fault the guy for that. We need to stop treating our favorite teams as members of the family and realize that it is a game played by a group of guys who are only playing there because that is where they could receive the most amount of money.

Treating it as anything else just leads to heartbreak.

For me, it leads to a headache, since I need to hear a person make stupid, idiotic comments about how Player X is villainous monster who likes to drink the blood of children because he decided to play for other team.

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