Broke-Heart Stripes

Johnny Damon's coming to town.

Eh.

I do not like Johnny Damon anymore. In fact, if anyone has a fireplace, please email me, because I have a mixed bag of Johnny Damon paraphanelia that would be great to watch go up in a cloud of smoke, the ghosts of the past screeching as the flames burn blue and white, Steinbrenners' evil face evident in the curls of flame. I'd like to do this before June 1, when this bag of "WWJDD" t-shirt and a Johnny Damon promotional Puma poster from the Rolling Rally will be unceremoniously dumped on my curb.

See? I'm getting all sentimental. I have pictures of me pretending to kiss his giant face on the Puma truck after the parade. I still have my "Our Papi, who art in Fenway" poem up in my cube, with "For ever and ever, Damon" as the last line. Johnny Damon is like the bad boyfriend who breaks your heart, but when you catch a whiff of cologne or you think of a place you went together (2004 ALCS, World Series) you get kind of sad, like you'd like to let him back into your life. You know it would be, like, the worst idea in the world, but there's a little place in your heart that dumbass lives forever. "Being mentioned in the same phrase as Jesus or God? Man, those guys are awesome." What a dumbass. But wasn't he sweet?

No. I know there's a whole kerfuffle about should Johnny be booed today when he shows up in CF in the dreaded pinstripes, or applauded. Johnny's appealed to everyone to be nice, since it's disrespectful to Coco Crisp to boo Johnny for leaving. But it's got nothing to do with Coco, Johnny. It has nothing to do with the great new man in our lives. It has to do with you hurting us. We defended you from Yankees fans who said you were slow, who said you were vain, who said you weren't a great hitter. We were vindicated when you showed them in Game 7. We'll always have that. But when we saw you in those stripes, with Michelle and Torre by your side, you broke our hearts, and that's unforgivable.

I am in the camp of booing him. I wouldn't boo him as loudly as I would A-Rod, because Johnny and I had some great times. I loved him on Queer Eye. I watched his episode of Cribs, although it was painful to hear him talk. I loved his beautiful long hair. But he chose to go to the Yankees. Not the White Sox or the Dodgers, but our sworn enemy. It's like our ex-boyfriend went to our best friend, who we never really trusted and secretly hated. It hurts too much to be civil when we run into each other, Johnny. The pain is too fresh. We're running into you at the punch bowl, and we're calling you out on being an asshole.