"I guess we're not the smartest team. I've forgotten the number of outs twice this season myself," said Damon. "We obviously aren't looking at the scoreboard a whole lot. We must be looking at the chicks in the stands."
that's rich coming from a neandertal!
― j.q. higgins, Tuesday, 20 April 2004 14:45 (twenty-two years ago)
The NY Post ran this story with a split picture of Damon and a caveman, pointing out the "similarities".
April 23, 2004 -- Any woolly mammoths in The Bronx better beware. The Red Sox are coming to town for a three-game series with the Yankees, and they're bringing their caveman center fielder - the very hairy Johnny Damon.
As the latest round in a bitter baseball battle starts tonight, Damon's new thick beard and wild mane is making Yankee fans wonder if the Beantowners have gotten so desperate to beat New York that they've cloned a caveman.
"He sure looks like a Neanderthal," said Yankee fan Michael Carlucci, 34, of New Jersey. "He always looks confused by off-speed pitches - maybe he's de-evolving."
"Thank God Steinbrenner disallows those kind of long, flowing locks and facial hair," said Carlucci. "There's no long hair and beards in baseball - just like there's no crying. Except, of course, for Boston - there's crying and long hair."
Damon said his new look is both an anti-Yankee protest and a team-spirit booster - sort of like the lame "Cowboy Up" craze Boston backers used to psyche themselves for their failed bid to beat New York last year.
Damon's new caveman chic is meant to show that the hippie-dippy, anything-goes attitude is alive at Fenway. But one expert in prehistoric life says the Sox slugger has a ways to go if he really wants to become the Neanderthal man of center field.
"It's an insult to the people who lived in those cavernous alcoves long ago. And no self-respecting caveman would wear a Red Sox uniform," said Ken Mowbray, a physical anthropologist with the American Museum of Natural History.
― bnw (bnw), Saturday, 24 April 2004 14:05 (twenty-two years ago)