I'm TRYING to turn the page

...but I keep reading more about the Damon debacle. I'm up in New England for the holidays, so I'm literally surrounded by Sox/Yankee fans and periodicals. I imagine that there will be tons of complaints and discussions about the signing tomorrow with the family.

Anyway, you can always count on Bill Simmons over at ESPN to capture the feelings of Red Sox fans and yet add some realism. He's got a great column today - "Damon, Dollars and You." I heartily agree with one of his points, that Sox fans would be the first to turn their Johnny if the Sox had signed him for big $$ and then he tanked next season. As he writes:

Fans can be incredibly unrealistic and naive. We expect athletes to maintain an unyielding loyalty to their current cities, even if they have been playing there for only 3-4 years. We expect them to understand the "importance" of something like the Sox-Yanks rivalry, to think exactly like us, to say to themselves, "Wait, I can't switch sides to the Yankees, that's our archrival!" We expect them to feel hatred for the teams that WE don't like, ignoring the fact that rivalries thrive solely because of the fan bases, because we're the ones keeping them alive. And we expect them to turn down Godfather offers out of loyalty to their fans, only we'll turn on them the moment they start struggling...

Anyway, if you're a Red Sox fan, I hope you learned two things this week. First, the Sox-Yankees feud matters infinitely more to us than it does to the players. That's why these guys have no problem switching sides. They just don't give a crap. Sadly, we do. And second, to paraphrase Ordway, it's almost always about the money..

Go read the article for a great perspective - one I share. And he closes with this great thought:

If he struggles coming out of the gate, Yankees fans will turn on him fast and furiously, leading to the rare scenario of BOTH Yankees and Red Sox fans being furious that Johnny Damon has signed with the Yankees. We can only hope.