When Johnny Damon left the Boston Red Sox in 2005, he was seen as a traitor for going to the New York Yankees. So when the Yankees came to town nine times in his time there, he was booed to no end by the Fenway Faithful.
When Damon came to town with the Detroit Tigers in 2010, the Fenway Faithful never got a chance to do anything good or bad towards Damon because he was out with an injury. And since they only came once last year, there was nothing that could be done.
But you can be darn sure that when Damon comes to Fenway Park in 2011 he’ll be booed once again. And on top of it all, the Fenway Faithful can get some extra booing in towards Manny Ramirez.
The reason why both of them will get the good ol’ visitors/enemies routine is the fact that both of them have agreed to one-year deals with the Tampa Bay Rays according to Jon Heyman of SI.com. Heyman reports that Damon will get $5.25 million plus another $750K in attendance bonuses (good luck with that as they only drew just over 23,000 fans last year and that’s because the team was actually relevant). Manny will get $2 million which is usually what he carries around as pocket change.
Both deals are subject to them passing physicals.
Nothing like signing a few Red Sox rejects to help your team. Good luck with that Tampa Bay, especially Manny.
Photo credits: AP Photo (Ramirez), Getty Images (Damon)
