Johnny Damon
Johnny David Damon (born
November 5,
1973 in
Fort Riley,
Kansas) is a
Major League Baseball outfielder who plays
center field for the
New York Yankees.
His mother, Yome, is
Thai and his father, Jimmy, is
American. They met while his father was serving as a
staff sergeant in the
United States Army. Johnny was born on an Army base and spent much of his early childhood as an "
Army brat," moving to several bases before his father left the Army and settled the family in the
Orlando area.
[http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0198934/bio]Damon was selected by the
Kansas City Royals in the first round of the
1992 amateur
draft out of Orlando's
Dr. Phillips High School, where he had been teammates with
A. J. Pierzynski; he was the 35th pick overall. He played for the Royals from
1995 to
2000, and spent
2001 with the
Oakland Athletics. He spent 2002 to 2005 with the
Boston Red Sox before signing as a free agent with the
New York Yankees on December 20, 2005.
As a part of his exercise routine, Johnny admits to pursuing
cars from one end of his block to the other on foot. "I live on a street (in the Orlando area) where the speed limit is 25 miles an hour and the
police enforce it. At night, I'd wait out there and when a car came by I would race the car home, so I think I can go at least 25 miles an hour. I scared some of the people, seeing a
caveman racing after cars," said Damon in a
Providence newspaper article early in 2004.
In the postseason, Damon hit .283 with 4 home runs and 13 RBI in 2001 and 2003-2005.
On
June 27,
2003, Damon joined a very exclusive group of Major League Baseball players by recording three
base hits in the first inning of a game against the
Florida Marlins. The Red Sox scored 14 runs in that inning, and 10 runs before a single out was recorded. The Red Sox won the game 25-8. [
1]
Despite the impressive game, it was during the 2004 season when Damon began to re-establish himself among the premier lead-off hitters and
center fielders in the game today. In arguably his best season as a Major Leaguer, Damon
batted .304 with 20
home runs and 94
RBIs, and showed an improved patience at the plate. According to Damon's autobiography, he was only the 4th leadoff batter in the history of Major League Baseball to ever drive in more than 90 runs in a season.
Through his four-year career as a Red Sox (2002-2005), Johnny Damon appeared in 597 games (all of them as the center fielder, except for 7 as a
designated hitter). [
2] Of his 2476
at bats in a Boston uniform, 2259 of them were as the leadoff hitter. Damon batted 2nd in the lineup for 156 at bats in 2002, accounting for nearly all of the rest except for various
pinch hitting appearances. Damon did start two games as the Red Sox' #3 hitter in 2004. In 2005, his final season with the Red Sox, Damon had 624 at bats, and all but three were as the leadoff hitter.[
3]
Hairstyle
Damon gained some notoriety for the prominent
beard and long, uncut
hairstyle he brought with him to
spring training in the
2004 season, contrasting with his previously clean-cut appearance. His long hair and beard actually came from an unlikely cause - his head on collision with
Damian Jackson during the
2003 playoffs. Damon lay on the field unconscious for approximately five minutes. When he came to, Damon was completely disoriented, believing that he was still playing for his old team, the
Oakland Athletics. For several weeks thereafter, Damon continued to be very disoriented, as even today, Damon has a "spotty" recollection of Game 3 of the 2003 Championship Series against former arch rivals the
New York Yankees. For the entire offseason after this injury, Damon suffered extremely painful headaches, which he said came every afternoon around two o'clock. The headaches came to disrupt his life so much that he stopped shaving and having his hair cut. So by the beginning of the 2004 season, he had an uncharacteristic big bushy beard and shoulder length hair. His new look, probably coupled with the runaway success of the recently-released
Mel Gibson film The Passion of the Christ, inspired fans and sportswriters to draw good-natured comparisons between his appearance and that of
Jesus. (Some people also drew comparisons to the late
Jim Morrison, the lead singer of
The Doors, and to
Charles Manson.) Fans with center-field seats at
Fenway Park began showing up with fake beards and wigs to support their favorite center fielder. Sales of t-shirts that read "W.W.J.D.D." and "Johnny is my homeboy" were robust. Even
Bronson Arroyo was seen with a shirt that proclaimed, "What curse? We got Jesus on our side."
On May 21, 2004, Johnny shaved his beard in a charity event sponsored by the
Gillette razor company. The proceeds from the event went to benefit literacy programs in conjunction with the
Boston Public Library. He regrew the beard and it remained for the rest of the season.
 |
Johnny Damon, center, jokes with players before Spring Training game, 2005. |
2004 Playoffs
During the
2004 ALCS, Damon was in a bit of a slump, getting on base much less often than he had been during the regular season and the
ALDS. However, he redeemed himself in Game 7 on October 20 by hitting two home runs, including a
grand slam in the 2nd inning, to help the Boston Red Sox become the first team in major league history (and just the third in the history of North American pro sports) to overcome a 3-0 postseason series deficit, in a 10-3 victory over the
New York Yankees in Game 7.
In 2005, Damon wrote
Idiot: Beating "The Curse" and Enjoying the Game of Life with Peter Golenbock, and also appeared on
Late Night With Conan O'Brien in April during a series against the Yankees. On June 7, he appeared on the hit Bravo TV series
Queer Eye for the Straight Guy with four of his Red Sox teammates (
Jason Varitek,
Kevin Millar,
Doug Mirabelli,
Tim Wakefield).
On
December 20,
2005, Damon signed a four-year, $52 million dollar contract with the
New York Yankees. The deal made Damon hated in
Boston because of his past loyalties to the city. As the Yankees have a strict dress code forbidding long hair and facial hair below the upper lip, Damon had his hair and beard cut on December 22. Damon is the third notable Red Sox player in the past 12 years to "switch sides" and sign a contract with the Yankees, following in the footsteps of
Wade Boggs and
Roger Clemens (though Clemens signed with the
Toronto Blue Jays in between stints with the Red Sox and Yankees). Much like Boggs and Clemens (although Clemens was not offered a contract by Boston after his last season there), Damon has been vilified by Red Sox fans. He even was quoted as saying "There's no way I can go play for the Yankees, but I know they're going to come after me hard. It's definitely not the most important thing to go out there for the top dollar, which the Yankees are going to offer me. It's not what I need."
[http://boston.redsox.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20050501&content_id=1034754&vkey=news_bos&fext=.jsp&c_id=bos] He joined the Yankees months later.
During the first Yankee-Red Sox game of the 2006 season on May 1, Johnny Damon was repeatedly booed throughout the night by Fenway fans. Damon went 0-for-4. Fellow Yankee
Mike Myers, formerly of the Red Sox, was "surprised at the reception". A notable minority of fans cheered Damon on when he tipped his hat off to his old team's dugout and to the rest of Fenway, but the majority of the park took part in various jeers when Damon was at bat and on the field.
[http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/gameday_recap.jsp?ymd=20060501&content_id=1427623&vkey=recap&fext=.jsp&c_id=nyy] Reflecting on his return to Fenway, Damon remarked "I love Boston and I always will. I'll always have terrific memories and great fans here," Damon said. "Those fans [that booed] are just the kind of people who wish they were in my spot -- they really do. They've got no class, but that only speaks for a few of them.
[http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20060502&content_id=1430558&vkey=news_nyy&fext=.jsp&c_id=nyy]For the rest of the article go to:
**
Red Sox Nation#Topics of particular significance to Red Sox NationDamon was announced part of the United States team in the
World Baseball Classic on
January 16,
2006. He went 1-7 and scored a run during the WBC, despite missing some time in second round games due to
tendonitis in his left (throwing) shoulder.
Damon was once married to Angela Vannice from 1992 - 2002 and they have twins together,Madelyn and Jackson, born April 22, 1999.
[http://arod.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/team/player_career.jsp?player_id=113028] Damon has been married to Michelle Mangan since December 30, 2004.
[http://www.lovetripper.com/bridalstars/wedding-database/johnny-damon.html] The couple are expecting their first child together in late 2006. [
4] It will be Damon's third child and Mangan's first.
Boston Red Sox
*Appeared on
MTV Cribs after the Red Sox won the
2004 World Series [
5]
*Appeared on
Late Night with Conan O'Brien. (First aired on April 5, 2005)
*Appeared in the movie
Fever Pitch alongside catcher/captain
Jason Varitek and right fielder
Trot Nixon.
*Appeared on
Queer Eye for the Straight Guy with some fellow Red Sox. [
6]
*Made a cameo appearence on
TNA Wrestling Match in
Orlando, Florida on
December 11,
2005 when Damon gave the home plate to
Chicago White Sox Catcher
A. J. Pierzynski in order to hit
Simon Diamond to win the match.
New York Yankees
*Appeared on
The Late Show with David Letterman alongside with comedian
Billy Crystal. Yankees' Manager
Joe Torre made a cameo appearance by pitching to both Damon and Crystal. (First aired on April 10, 2006)
*Appeared on
Martha (First aired on April 26, 2006)
*Appeared on
Live With Regis and Kelly.
*Appeared on
Quite Frankly with Stephen A. Smith (First aired on March 6, 2006)
*
Johnny Damon at
The Internet Movie Database
