It is almost hard to believe that former Red Sox icon Johnny Damon is in the fourth and final year of his $52 million deal with the Yankees. His departure following the 2005 season (which served as a prelude, in many ways, to the Yankees' 11th hour swoop on Mark Teixeira this offseason) sent the Sox front office as well as New England into a state of shock.
Since then, Damon has become, in many ways, the epicenter of the New York-Boston fault line. He is booed more lustily than perhaps any other visiting player at Fenway Park. Apparently, Damon has become the defining emblem of Yankee evil when in Boston, a development that no longer troubles him.
To the contrary, the notion that he would be so closely identified with his current franchise serves as a point of some pride. Damon, after all, is hopeful that his time in New York will continue beyond this year.
“I love it so much (in New York) I actually hope it can become longer,” Damon said. “I know I’m getting towards the end of my career, but I’ve enjoyed every moment of being in New York: the atmosphere, the players, the ownership. Everything was great except that this could be my last chance to win a World Series here in New York. … Hopefully, I can be happy in New York for a few more years. It’s tough to keep moving around teams. Hopefully this will be my last.”
While his hostile treatment by Red Sox fans makes it seem as if his departure is still fresh, to Damon, Boston now seems to belong in a far-removed moment of his career. From that distance, Damon still expresses satisfaction not just with the memory of his role in bringing a title to Boston in 2004, but as part of a group that changed the culture of the franchise.
“I’m definitely going to remember what the team accomplished here: winning, changing people’s perceptions of what they thought of Boston,” Damon said during his trip to Fenway. “Before, people didn’t think too much of coming here. Then they brought in characters like me and (Kevin) Millar, it kind of helped change what people around the U.S. thought. It seems like it’s still going. I feel strongly that it’s because of what the players were able to bring here. That part I’ll always remember.”
Even so, four years later, there is still lingering dismay about the end of his tenure in Boston. The outfielder maintains to this day that the Sox made no more than a half-hearted attempt to get him to return to Boston.
“I know deep down that there was no way I was going to come back with the lack of negotiations (by the Sox when he was a free agent),” said Damon. “I knew I wasn’t coming back.”
For the sake of perspective, it is worth mentioning a couple of facts related to that negotiation. The Sox made clear at the time that their four-year, $40 million offer (which represented a raise from the four-year, $32 million deal that Damon was concluding) was sincere.
However, they felt that it was important to set and establish a value for a player who would be in his mid-30s for the life of a four-year deal. Boston was willing to nudge its bid upward towards $11 million a season, but refused to be drawn into a bidding war.
Even in the final hours before news of Damon’s signing with the Yankees broke, agent Scott Boras was calling the Sox to insist that he had a six-year, $72 million offer in hand. That being the case, though the Sox were unsurprised to learn that Damon had turned down their offer and signed with the Yankees (who had both a need and money), they were stunned to learn that he took a four-year, $52 million deal.
Nonetheless, once the initial shock of the deal subsided, the Sox were able to take comfort in their process. The team was concerned that Damon’s age would lend itself to a decline in performance, and a likely move from a premium defensive position to another spot on the field by the end of his contract. As such, the team viewed a move towards youth in center (in the form of Coco Crisp and Jacoby Ellsbury) as a sound course when Damon declined their
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