The first introduction of Jacoby Ellsbury to Johnny Damon came with then-Red Sox reliever Alan Embree yelling across the Sox clubhouse upon seeing the newly drafted Ellsbury on television.

"Hey, Johnny!" Embree yelled affably to his teammate in June 2005. "Your replacement is on TV."

On Tuesday, Damon admitted to remembering that moment from six summers ago.

"Oh, yeah," Damon said. "He was a pretty good replacement."

The Tampa Bay outfielder also hasn't forgotten when the present met the future face to face for the first time thanks to a post-draft visit by the then-Oregon State outfielder to Fenway Park.

"He was a little uncomfortable being in a big league locker room," Damon recalled. "I told him, 'That's fine. That's what you have to do to get to the big leagues, come take someone's spot and carry it with honor. I'll be somewhere else and still playing baseball.'

"He looked young. But it's nice when players are getting compared to you. You actually feel like you've done something. I'm sure at the time he was thinking those were pretty big shoes to fill without playing in a pro game yet. I had those comparisons coming up."

The moment stuck with Ellsbury as well.

"I was just in awe," he said.

Now, more than six years later, Ellsbury is the one offering an image eliciting awe. With Damon watching from the visitors dugout, the Red Sox center fielder put on another show Tuesday, hitting home runs in each game of his team's doubleheader.

Much like Damon did when he surpassed the production of his most commonly placed comparison, Kirk Gibson, Ellsbury has seemingly trumped the iconic player he ultimately replaced in the middle of the Red Sox outfield. The student has graduated … and then some.

"You tend to follow them more, but at the same time you have to worry about what's going in your world, also," Damon said of the degree to which Ellsbury landed on his radar following the '05 draft. "I followed him a tiny bit, but once he got called up to the big leagues I followed him more."

What Damon, and the baseball world, has observed with Ellsbury to date is the kind of player many predicted he would become. But the reality is that the Sox center fielder has offered something even more than perhaps his predecessor -- the player so many compared him to -- ever could deliver.

The following is how the two players compared after playing their first 467 regular-season major league games:

 The Rays suggest that the difference in Ellsbury this season has been significant.

"He’s not missing his pitch when he sees it. He’s always had some power. There’s no question he’s had power," Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon said of Ellsbury. “I think the difference is now, when he gets a pitch that he can drive, he is. In the past you saw a lot of pop-ups to the opposite field, a lot of roll-over groundballs. I think he’s maturing as a hitter, and now, basically, when he’s seeing his pitch to hit and drive it, he’s not fouling it off and he’s not taking it. I think that’s the biggest difference.

"As an offensive player, you look at him, what he does and how he swings the bat — and like I said in the past, you could challenge him in situations and make the pitch and you could expect where the ball is going to go. Now it’s going harder and longer. He’s doing well."

In his third full season playing on an everyday basis, Ellsbury is turning in a season that could very well trump any year Damon, a borderline Hall-of-Famer, has ever had in his 17-year big league career.

Damon's best season was perhaps his final campaign with the Royals in 2002 (like Ellsbury, his fifth as a big leaguer), in which he hit a career-high .327 with 16 homers and 46 stolen bases while totaling a .382 OBP and .877 OPS. 

After popping two more homers on Tuesday, Ellsbury is hitting .313 with 22 home runs, 31 stolen bases a .368 OBP and .884 OPS. He is the first Sox player since Damon to have a 20/20 season, and in fact, Ellsbury is the first player in Sox history to have 20 or more homers in a year in which he has swiped 30 or more bases.

"Ellsbury’s been hot all year long. He’s a good hitter. You make a mistake to him, he’s going to capitalize on it," said Tampa Bay starter James Shields, whose latest outing was spoiled by the outfielder's three-run blast. "He’s made great adjustments this year — phenomenal adjustments. I think he’s a lot more patient at the plate, he’s very selective. He knows exactly the zone he wants to hit in, and if you make a mistake to him he’s a threat. Not only is he a threat at the plate, but he’s a threat on the bases. There’s a fine line there. You don’t want to walk him, you don’t want to be too fine with him, but you have to make some pitches.

"I think he’s got a better approach this year. He’s got an idea of how to hit. He’s making those adjustments and working the count a lot better. I think over the past couple of years he’s definitely been more of a free swinger, not that typical leadoff hitter type of guy. And I think he’s made great adjustments this year."

Damon and Ellsbury both knew this moment would ultimately arrive -- when the memory of Damon's excellence in a Red Sox uniform faded with each Ellsbury at-bat. Still, it is a transformation that makes that first hint at such an evolution seem so very, very long ago.

"That happens all the time because teams have to be ready just in case," Damon said of dealing with the Sox drafting of Ellsbury. "Look at all the shortstops the Yankees have drafted since '92. Teams have to have those guys ready. Fortunately for the Red Sox, they drafted a great player with a lot of ability who was able to make it in a short time."