Booing Johnny Damon

I attended opening day in Kansas City this year. AGAIN. This was the first time in my life where there was no excitement or enthusiasm for the coming year, and to be honest, there is no chance I would have attended at all if Zach Greinke weren't pitching the game. It was an added bonus to see Justin Verlander pitch for the Tigers. They're two of the top five starters in the American League.

This is a little about sports, and I suppose it's a lot about patience. I've come to believe that maybe I'm too damned patient with the ship of fools most people call the Kansas City Royals. And I've almost certainly been too patient with their idiotic fans. I'll get into that in just a moment here, but for the two or three people who might actually read this, if you have no interest in baseball whatsoever, this post will not be for you. I won't do this again, in all likelihood, because we don't have baseball in Kansas City. I can tell you this much in advance--it won't be funny. It's just a description of misplaced anger and collective stupidity, and the part I've come to play in it...

I grew up with the Royals of the seventies and eighties, so in my world, the Royals were always at or near the top. It never seemed they would quite get over the hump, and it took a little luck and a lot of perseverance to finally gain their only World Series title in 1985. They probably had the best team in baseball a couple of other years, but they lacked a closer in the late seventies. Then, as now, the guy who should have been a "fireman" was more an "arsonist". I'm not talking about Soria here, he's great, but he's irrelevant. The team doesn't use him, so he might as well be stationed on the moon...

But I didn't know any different, and I kind of danced through my childhood thinking that the Royals would always be a reliable and well run organization. I never agreed with the Whitey Herzog firing after the 1979 season, but that was my only real complaint with the team over about a decade's time. It always appeared they were trying to be successful. The teams they put on the field were always entertaining and competitive. I almost forget what that's like.

Well, the Royals today are reliable. They are as reliable in their behaviors and decision making processes as a monkey fed overdoses of crack cocaine. You would like that monkey to pass out before he commences his next stupid act, but that goddamned monkey just keeps feeding itself more crack. It's sad, unless one enjoys watching the same train wreck repeatedly.

All this being said, the Royals still have some fans. This is, in and of itself, remarkable. But I'm sitting there on a Monday afternoon, wondering what in the world these other 40,000 people did for a living. I had to think it was more interesting than sitting in that ballpark waiting for this season's train to derail. I was never at ease there--I don't handle crowds as well as I used to--and I just don't much like the organization anymore. I still root for them because they're all I've got. My "rooting" is much more a deeply based cynicism than anything else this year. I know they will fail, it's just a question now of how miserably they will succeed in this endeavor of hopelessness.

But anyway, Royals fans are jaded. For good reason. They're in the middle of one of the worst fifteen year stunts in the history of baseball. There aren't ten other organizations that have piled up as many losses over that period of time, and professional baseball has been played since 1876. That's a big sample size, and there isn't any reason for hope anymore. It can get worse. It will, barring a miracle of luck, because the people with the pursestrings don't care about anything but the bottom line. More about that in a moment. The organization still has no concept that the team should at least occasionally be competitive.

When former owners Ewing and Muriel Kauffman passed on, the Royals were without ownership in one of the most turbulent times of baseball's history. The Kauffmans' set up a succession plan by which the team could be run by a board of directors until an owner or ownership group could be established that would guarantee the team could stay in Kansas City. The intent here was good--the results couldn't have been worse. Miles Prentice (who has since declared bankruptcy) was denied ownership of the Royals despite garnishing local support of fifty percent ownership. These potential shareholders included Tom Watson, George Brett, and so on and so on and so on. They were flatly denied by MLB, because they saw something in Prentice they didn't like. So be it. It's a private organization, and they can and will do what they want. So they did. They sold the team to David Glass at a thirty percent discount over the market bid, and now we sit where we are today. Glass has run a remarkably profitable organization, because he doesn't put any good investment toward the product on the field. He knows how to sell a five dollar hot dog, a nine dollar beer, and he's pretty sure it costs about fifteen bucks to park a car. He's not a shithead, he's just an asshole who knows how to make a buck. Being CEO of Wal-Mart for over a decade teaches valuable life lessons about how to destroy communities in a highly profitable manner...

So now we have an owner (who is not local, by the way) that attends about as many Cardinal games as Royal games who doesn't give a shit if the team wins or not. He can tell whatever lies he wants, but that's the truth. He'd rather camp out in the Ozarks than watch this team play firsthand, and I can't say I blame him. He's making money, and he doesn't have to do a goddamned thing. So he doesn't. Unless he wants to prove in new and interesting ways that he doesn't give a flying shit about winning baseball games.

On January 8, 2001, there was a three-way trade involving the Royals, A's, and Devil Rays. Kansas City sent Johnny Damon and second base prospect Mark Ellis to the A's. Oakland sent Ben Grieve to Tampa, and SS Angel Berroa and C A.J. Hinch to the Royals. Tampa sent P Cory Lidle to the A's, and P Roberto Hernandez to the Royals.

Even if you know nothing about the people mentioned above, know this: The two people the Royals coughed up in this deal are still playing major league baseball, and Damon is well on his way to a Hall of Fame career. Ellis has been as steady and reliable in an everyday role in a second-base slot as any team could ever hope for. He's been with the A's since the deal. Damon has started for two different World Series winners, and neither club would have pulled it off without him. So that's who the Royals gave up here...

Now know this: Four of the others involved in this deal are out of baseball, and one is dead. Lidle somehow passed on without ever bearing the disgrace of donning a Kansas City uniform, so his soul probably rests in peace. The others are all now nothing but footnotes in baseball history. I'll say this again: This was a trade. Damon was dealt by the Kansas City Royals before the final year of his contract, perhaps because David Glass couldn't stand the fact that we might have the best outfield in baseball two years in a row. And Glass could take further pleasure in fucking over Royals fans with the handling of Jermaine Dye and Carlos Beltran in the future. He likes to spread out the misery from time to time, but I insist that this is the worst trade in Major League history.

Some will say: "But Damon wouldn't sign with Kansas City. The Royals had to do something with him." Okay, shithead. I understand your argument, and here's why you're a dumbass: The Royals hang on to Damon, and they could have received an additional number one compensatory pick in the upcoming draft. Or, they could have hung on to Damon for the year, and dealt him on the open market to teams in contention. They might have gotten some value in the deal. But Glass wanted to save a little of that $7 million contract that would be due Damon in that year, and the decision was purely financial. He's got the organization by the balls, and he doesn't give a shit about the fans. And the fans continue to appreciate his abuse. My argument, as I stated before, is that Royals fans are idiots. Here's why:

Back to the first inning of Opening Day. Up comes Johnny Damon, now with the Tigers. Over half the fans boo. For whatever reason, I didn't see this one coming. I never really paid any attention when the fans were booing Damon when he was with the Red Sox or Yanks because, hell--those are players to be universally booed in KC. When he was with Oakland, I honest to God thought the fans were booing the horrific quality of the trade! (I admit it--I was drunk at the time and probably wasn't thinking too clearly) I didn't think it was personal...But these shithead fans--they're BOOING JOHNNY DAMON HERE!!!

WTF?!? They're booing the guy for kicking ass here for six years?!? For having the common sense to want to win the game?!? WTF?!? I was truly in disbelief. HE GOT TRADED!!! The Royals traded him away. He didn't leave town rambling on and on about ownership's failures and miserable decision making--that was his agent, Scott Boras. His only detrimental comments about the Royals involved their inability to commit to winning baseball, and he's right. He never said anything detrimental about the fans--though now he should. Somehow, in the bizarre world inside the head of Royals fan, Johnny Damon is to blame for this team's continued demise.

Wake up people. It's time to boo the real person responsible for this debacle, and that's Mark Ellis. Next time he's in town with the A's, I'm going to get a front row seat, and I'm going to tell him exactly what I think about his "decision" to get traded off this sinking and suck-ass ship some people call the Kansas City Royals.