I was against this move.  All of us were.  My immediate response when I heard it was to hope that it was a bunk report.  I loathe Johnny Damon and all he stands for.   Which is, to say, reveling in your idiocy.  That being said, there are quite a few positives about Johnny Damon playing centerfield for the Yankees next year.  So, without further ado, I will make an attempt at curbing the mass suicides of our disciples here at NoMaas.  I present to you, my little snowflakes, the reasons to be happy about this signing.

1) While playing centerfield for the Yankees, Johnny Damon cannot play centerfield for the Red Sox.  This is, far and away, the most important aspect of this move.  The Red Sox are without a centerfielder.  You also may have heard that Red Sox fans, as a group, do not much like the Yankees.  For a management group with credibility problems after the Theo Epstein fiasco, this was an awful way to start.  The fans are furious.  And they should be.  That team is in a bind now.  No centerfielder, no shortstop, a light-hitting third baseman at first base, and Mike Lowell’s rotting corpse at third base.  Their rotation is questionable, at best, and they still don’t have a single reliever I would be particularly confident in.  That team is looking pretty lousy right now.  And remember when the Yankees were desperate for a centerfielder?  You do, I’m sure.  It was yesterday.  We were listening to Brian Cashman seriously try to say that Bubba Crosby was an option in centerfield.  Get used to Jed Hoyer pimping Adam Stern to the media.  When the Red Sox were negotiating with Seattle for Reed, it was always seen as a second choice.  If the Red Sox wanted to, they could always just re-sign Johnny Damon.  Not now.  And, lo and behold, the Mariners have taken the Reed for Arroyo or Clement deal away.  Major League General Managers are smelling blood in the water.  And that blood is ankle blood.

2) Johnny Damon actually is a pretty good player.  Is he $52 million good?  No.  He is pretty good though.  He’ll hit pretty well next year, and he’ll be an astronomical improvement in our outfield defense over that guy who kidnapped Bernie Williams in 2003 and has been pretending to be him ever since.

3) AFL MVP Eric Duncan, Philip Hughes, Melky Cabrera, Tyler Clippard, and all of their prospect friends are still Yankee prospects.  Chien-Ming Wang and Robinson Cano are still Yankee players.  Shawn Chacon(who I knew was going to be great for us, ask anybody, I predicted this like a year ago) is still a Yankee.  We lose a second round pick, because Farnsworth already was going to cost the first-rounder.  So, after the dust clears from the draft pick movement, we replace our first round pick at #28 with the Phillies’ #21.  Thats an improvement.  We replace our second round pick with a first round sandwich pick.  Thats an improvement.

4) Johnny Damon’s wife is hot.   http://www.dailybull.com/sports/johnny-damons-wife.html

5) Damon will have to shave his beard and cut his moron hair.  Captain Caveman is dead.  He still kind of looks like the missing link, but at least he’ll be respectable.

6) Its only a 4 year deal.  Hey, its better than 5 or 6.

So, in conclusion, this signing is not the end of the world.  We’ll live.  And take solace in this: while you may be angry, you aren’t nearly as angry as Red Sox fans.