 |
| (Getty Images) |
Chances are,
Johnny Damon will
not make the
Hall Of Fame—in fact,
he might drop off the ballot after just one year of eligibility due to lack of sufficient support. But, as
MLB.com's
Joe Posnanski points out, Damon occupies some pretty rarefied air on
many levels. The most impressive fact to us is that
only two players is MLB history have 2,500 hits, 500 doubles, 100 triples, 200 homers, and 400 stolen bases. One of them is Damon. The
other is some guy named
Paul Molitor. Also, on a
Top Ten List of
most runs scored by players with under 250 HRs, Damon is the only
non-Hall-of-Famer who appears. My memories of Damon focus
primarily on his key contributions to the 2004 World Series Championship—like his grand-slam against
The Evil Ones in Game Seven of the ALCS (he actually hit
two HRs and had six RBIs). But I will also cherish another memory. Shortly after the 2004 season, I ran into Damon at a Boston area TV uplink studio. He was about to appear on some national broadcast and I was set to be interviewed by
Bill O'Reilly on the
Fox News Channel (
never a fun assignment). As we both nervously awaited our respective on-air moments, we chatted about the historic Red Sox win and his role in it. I thanked him for his contributions and he said,
"It was quite a ride, wasn't it?" Indeed it was. Here's hoping Johnny gets enough votes to stay on that HOF ballot for at least a little while.
