I grew up playing and watching baseball. I collected cards. Moreover, I poured over Beckett’s price guides every month like a little stock broker. My dad bought me hundreds packs of baseball cards at Guthrie’s Pharmacy, urging me not to tell my mom about them. They were organized in bleached cardboard boxes that took up close to all the various nooks and crannies of my bedroom (the parts that weren’t taken up by baseball and karate trophies).

For several summers, an older friend, my brother and I would walk up to Field 2 in Sewell Park to throw and hit around. I could still guide any of you through the treacherous shortcut behind one of my neighbor’s houses that cut about half a mile out of the trip. When we weren’t doing that, we were playing tennis ball baseball in the cul de sac in front of my parents’ house.

I played summer league baseball. I played in spring and fall leagues. I kept on playing even when I was the kid good enough to make the team, but not good enough to earn playing time. Then, I threw around with the starting outfielders between innings while waiting for some scrap of playing time.

I waved red foam tomahawks and chanted and was a serious jingo for the Atlanta ball club. I sang “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” I chanted “LA sucks” at Atlanta-Fulton County stadium until my voicebox was raw, swollen and useless. My best sports moment ever (better than being at the Fiesta Bowl when Tennessee won the national title in 1998) was being at the 1992 NLCS game when Sid Bream chugged around third after a Francisco Cabrerra base hit to score the game-winning run.

Johnny Damon just signed to play for the Yankees. And that part of me died some. Last year’s Red Sox team was one of the few moments that gave me hope for the sport, and Johnny has rendered it a fraud. Screw you Johnny. R.I.P. baseball.