I like Johnny Damon . . .

. . . i really do. i think he plays the game the way it's supposed to be played.

But man, did he say some asshole things yesterday:

I'm very proud to be an American. My father served in the military. When it was asked if I would represent the country, there was no hesitation. I'm proud that we get to live in this land where there's freedom, where we can even have these baseball tournaments.

For the record, Johnny, a lot of us have fathers who served in the military. Not a lot of us are blessed with the athletic ability to play the game at the level you do, which i suspect has a little bit more to do with why you were asked to be on the team than your father's military service.

For the further record, the World Baseball Cup has been played 36 times since 1938, including 4 times in post-revolutionary Cuba, as well as Chinese Taipei (Taiwan) and the Dominican Republic in 1969. So, type of government is not really a qualifying feature of holding an international baseball tournament.

Later in the article, writer Ron Blum notes that "(w)hile the Yankees prevented catcher Jorge Posada from playing for Puerto Rico, Damon said they haven't tried to block his participation."

So much for personal freedom.