Monday, February 22, 2010

Johnny Damon Happy.... Again

Hey guys, Drew back here. It took me a day or two to remember how the Yankees played before Johnny Damon, and then after. The Yanks did go to the ALCS in 2004, but if Johnny Damon (and Dave Roberts) were never there, we may have gone on to win it all. In 2005, we got Randy Johnson as a free agent and we made the playoffs but struggled. In 2006, we got Johnny Damon away from the Sox and away from that creepy haircut. We made the postseason year after year yet he never made it far. In the 2008 season, we did not make it at all, and of course in 2009, they won it all. Johnny made one of the smartest plays I've ever seen on the bases, here it is if you haven't seen it before, he stole second and nobody was covering 3rd so he completely out ran the 2nd baseman to 3rd. I couldn't find a great video on YouTube. It was MUCH smarter than the Ruben Rivera play:

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/dZ94rkwdTvQ/0.jpg

Anyway.... Damon wasn't the reason for the Yankees failures, not at all. The team struggled, and several players were injured year to year. Johnny hit .285 with 77 homers and 296 RBI in his 4 seasons with the Yankees, and in 2009, at 35 years old, Damon hit .282 with 25 home runs and 82 RBIs. He was great in some spots and not so great in others. He's fast, and a good outfielder at covering the field, but he can't throw at all. I guess that's an upgrade right there. One of my favorites, although he did get hurt in the process, was when Youk hit that ball, Damon crashed into the wall, and the ball got stuck on top of the wall. That was funny, but not for long when he got hurt



He was on the Red Sox on this play, and it was hilarious. It's on blooper videos all the time, and is another example of "Manny being Manny", as those Sox fans put it. Damon shows off his weak arm on a hit by David Newhan on the Orioles, and Damon tries to throw it into the infield. Manny jumped out of nowhere as the cut-off guy and dove feet to the side of his body to get the ball. It looked a bit like this:

http://cdn.faniq.com/images/blog/Manny-cutoff.jpg

And that is probably the only thing I will ever like that was wearing those dirty uniforms. I gotta admit that that play was hilarious. The best part was that it was an inside the park home run, unlike Ruben Rivera, see top of page for video footage of an epic fail, hahaha.

Anyway, I just wanted to share a few Johnny Damon memories of mine, he now calls Detroit home and I don't really mind, he played well for us but now we have an upgrade in left field with Curtis Granderson. I'm looking forward to the new season, but the Yanks won't be good because of these Bad News Bears. Those guys I hope aren't too much of a waste of money or time. Guess what? We got this guy back too! We're so gonna be contenders, deja vu of 2004, except Damon won't be there and we win it all. See Ya!

1 comment:

  1. Nick Johnson will be awesome if he stays healthy. He's an OBP machine. The other guys though... decidedly less awesome.

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