Farewell, Johnny Damon

Barbers all across the Bronx are gearing up. They are sharpening their scissors, cleaning their combs, and lining up their finest shavers from best to almost-the-best. All because Johnny Damon is coming to town and he's going to need a trim.

A big trim.

Let's face the facts: Damon is no longer a Boston Red Sox. He saw the glorious, green dollar signs floating in the sky and his pen scribbled across the dotted line as fast as he could move. Some say he turned his back on Boston and Red Sox Nation, but money speaks, and he listened.

I think both Damon and agent Scott Boras were desperate. They were looking at the four-year, $40 million dollar deal on the table from the Red Sox and were at a stand-still. Do we take it? It's not quite what we want, but we may never see anything better. I mean, you [Damon] are an aging centerfielder that is undoubtedly losing your best assets.

Then the Yankees made their offer and it was a done deal. No hesitation at all.

Boras: "52 million? Are you craz - we'll take it!"

The Yankees were able to slip right under the Sox and went for the kill. They went for the jugular, essentially. They didn't toy around at all by adding a couple million here and there. They stepped to the plate and threw another thirteen million dollars in Damon's face. Who's going to reject that? No one. Not even a guy that coined himself an "Idiot."

Players come and go. It's a fact of baseball. Damon just happens to be the latest casualty. It's also a fact of baseball that players can go anywhere. And, more times than not, they go wherever you don't want them to go. For us Sox fans, it's the New York Yankees. Then again, that's probably true for every other team in Major League Baseball.

I'm asking all Sox fans one question: so what?

Damon is wearing the most hated uniform in all of professional sports: the loathed pinstripes. Does that change anything about the Boston uniform? Does that change anything about the people wearing that uniform? It doesn't and it shouldn't. It also shouldn't affect us, the fans, who, through thick and thin, will root on the men that step foot on the Fenway grass on a daily basis.

We'll cheer them on if they're bearded like Kevin Millar or clean-cut like Gabe Kapler. We'll cheer them on even if they let an innocent ground ball roll through their legs in a crucial playoff game. That's just us. We're Sox fans.

We've seen this before. The Yankees make a big signing and it rocks the baseball world. Then what do we do? We counter with a move that is usually bigger. We may not trade for a sure Hall of Famer (even though Ken Griffey Jr's name has been thrown out there), but we will do something. I wouldn't even put it past Boston to be able to pry Miguel Tejada away from the Orioles. Now that would surely top the Damon signing.

Damon is no longer a Red Sox, so we really don't need to worry about him anymore. We'll see him at least 19 times a year, so be sure to look forward to that because we can laugh at his new haircut.

I really wish I was one of those barbers in the Bronx right now.