Adapted from a text I sent a friend tonight:

For me it's not as much about him being a lying sack of shit like Johnny Damon. I get it's a business, I get he was never called Boston home.

For me, it's about how much I cared and how much I invested in him, since the first time he stole home from second base on an otherwise-normal passed ball. He was my type of player. He played his ass off, he was faster than lightning, he played center field, my boyhood position.

And I just loved that he was ours. He was a home grown bad ass who wasn't another big juicer who plays 1B. His type of skills don't come around very often, at all. Even rarely do they come up in an organization like the Red Sox, historically fat slow white guys and a few great pitchers.

I will say it makes me hate the Yankees even more, all over again. Maybe I needed that renewed venom. Maybe I'd gotten used to them having a lineup dependent on colostomy bags. Tonight my blood boils. He was my current favorite Red Sox. I feel like they knew it. I feel like they fucked me over personally.