Johnny Damon Deserves A Better Hall Of Fame Fate

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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.