"Almost cut my hair. Happened just the other day..."

Savage love
Originally uploaded by vegacura.

Merry Christmas.

The Yankees overpaid, but the length is right at four years; it's the same deal as the Yankees gave Matsui, so it makes sense.

What is so shocking, though, is that Boston was so complacent. I assumed and feared they were going to at least force the Yankees into a bidding war where New York would go five years. Allowing your hated rival to significantly upgrade offensively while leaving a huge hole where Center Field used to be looks like Boston dropped the ball. Figuratively, you know.

And Dan Shaughnessy is so cute when he's enraged. And inchoherent. First he compares Boston's current management (sans Theo Epstein, wunderkind) with the team's history of ineptitude.

No way around this one. Johnny Damon is a Yankee and it looks like the Red Sox don't know what they are doing. Time for Ben Cherington and Jed Hoyer to say hello to Lou Gorman and Dan Duquette. Looks like John Henry, Tom Werner, and Larry Lucchino finally know what it feels like to be Haywood Sullivan, Buddy LeRoux, and/or John Harrington.

While New England slept last night, Damon got into bed with the enemy. Sox officials smugly believed there was no market for their marquee center fielder and the Yankees took advantage of Boston's big sleep.

But in true Boston sportswriter fashion, it doesn't take long for Shaughnessy to lash out at the player.

The Sox won't recover from this one easily. In an already dismal offseason, they've now lost their center fielder and their leadoff hitter. They've also lost a local icon, a rare favorite of teenage girls and fanboy bloggers. Losing Damon hurts them on the field and in the arena of popular opinion. And losing Damon to the Yankees compounds the damage. When Alex Rodriguez got away a couple of years ago, Sox fans were fairly quick to scorn A-Rod and move forward.

Losing Damon won't draw the same reaction. The Idiot center fielder is Johnny Angel with Sox fans and his production in pinstripes will be a personal affront to Red Sox fans around the world.

Damon was quick to say he'll get on board, and cut his hair and shave to conform to Yankee ways. An all-too-modern ballplayer, he switched allegiance from Boston to New York before you could say, ''the New York Times owns 17 percent of the Red Sox."

Here's what Damon told Channel 4: ''They were coming after me aggressively. We know George Steinbrenner's reputation. He always wants to have the best players. He showed that tonight. He and Brian Cashman came after me hard. Now I'm part of the Yankees and that great lineup. We're going to be tough to beat."

We? Johnny, how could you? It took only a few minutes and $52 million to make you start calling the Yankees ''we."

Actually, it's pretty easy to understand. For all of his athletic gifts, we always knew Johnny had the depth of your average kiddie pool, and it's therefore entirely believable that he could invoke the royal Yankee ''we" so quickly.

He had no problem hanging the Sox brass out to dry.

"Hanging out to dry?" How so? If Shaughnessy thinks super-agent Scott Boras failed to do all he could to get a Sox counter-offer then he is dumber than even his prose would indicate.

Welcome home, Johnny.