'Idiot' Damon Uses Smarts to Put Yankees On Cusp of Title

PHILADELPHIA -- If Johnny Damon isn't careful, people are going to find out that he's got some smarts.

"That's the only thing that keeps me going now," he jokingly told FanHouse early Monday after almost single-handedly creating the Yankees' winning run in Game 4 of the World Series.

With the score tied in the ninth inning, two out and nobody on, Damon battled Brad Lidge through a nine-pitch at-bat to single. He then stole second and third on the same pitch before scoring on Alex Rodriguez's double.

"He really won the game for us," Jorge Posada said.

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Damon coined the "idiots" term for the 2004 Red Sox, and, if he hasn't intentionally cultivated a reputation as goofy and carefree, he at least doesn't fight it -- doing postgame TV interviews barechested, giving funny quotes or maintaining his caveman look in Boston.

But on the inside, Damon is actually a brainy ballplayer.

Kevin Long has known Damon since 1995, when they were side-by-side in the outfield of the Double-A Wichita Wranglers (and Damon was named Texas League Player of the Year).

"I think he should get more credit for how smart he is. He's always been real savvy, real smart. He thinks things out. And he comes across as someone who's -- 'Boy, I'm just a talented athlete.'"
-- Yankees hitting coach Kevin Long on Damon "I think he should get more credit for how smart he is," said Long, now the Yankees' hitting coach. "He's always been real savvy, real smart. He thinks things out. And he comes across as someone who's -- 'Boy, I'm just a talented athlete.'

"He's a talented athlete that's pretty smart, too."

Third base coach Rob Thomson said he never has to tell Damon where to play in left field "because he's always in the right spot."

"He's got great instincts," Thomson said, "he really does."

When Damon came up in the top of the ninth, Brad Lidge had blown away Hideki Matsui and Derek Jeter. Damon fell behind 1-2 but fouled off a pitch, took two balls, fouled off two more and then singled to left.

"I kept sitting slider, and he kept throwing the fastball," Damon said.

"They really don't teach you to do it that way. They normally always tell you to look fastball because if you sit slider, it would be too tough to catch up to a fastball. But I felt like his slider made me look silly on a couple pitches, so I kept sitting slider and just reacted to the fastball. So after the third 3-2 count, he threw three fastballs, and fortunately I got enough of it to get it over the shortstop and not enough of it to bounce in front of Raul [Ibanez in left]."

According to baseball-reference.com, the last time in World Series history a hitter battled for nine or more pitches to get a hit, with the score tied in the ninth inning or later, was Jeter's 2001 game-winning Game 4 homer off Arizona's Byung-Hyun Kim.

"It's a hell of an at-bat," Long said. "I marvel at the thing that Johnny Damon can do. That was one of the at-bats you just kind of shake your head and go, 'Wow.' "

Even though Lidge is perhaps the easiest pitcher in the majors on whom to steal, the Phillies still employed a drastic shift on Mark Teixeira. So when Damon took off on the first pitch to Teixeira, third baseman Pedro Feliz -- the only infielder on the left side -- took the throw at second.

Damon said he wasn't planning to go to third the entire play, that it would depend on where Feliz ended up after catching the ball. As Feliz had to step in front of second base to field a short hop, Damon popped up from his slide, glanced over his left shoulder and decided to take off.

"I got up to full speed pretty quick," Damon said, and that acceleration made it impossible for Feliz to catch him.

"I'm just glad that when I started running, I still had some of my young legs behind me."

Neither Lidge nor catcher Carlos Ruiz covered third, so Damon made it there without a play.

"I think he shocked everybody," Long said.

Said Thomson: "It was just a great heads-up play on Johnny's part. ... That's all instinct on him. I had nothing to do with it. I wish I could take credit for it."

Thomson said the Yankees do remind players that whenever they run to second -- on a steal or otherwise -- with the shift on, to anticipate a chance to go to third base.

In fact, that ploy figures into one of the most painful plays in recent Yankees memory.

On Opening Day 2003 in Toronto, Jeter was on first base and the Blue Jays shifted their infield against Jason Giambi. When Giambi grounded back to the pitcher, Jeter tried to go all the way to third.

Except catcher Ken Huckaby was alert enough to cover third, and when he took the throw from first baseman Carlos Delgado, he fell onto Jeter, causing a dislocated left shoulder that kept Jeter out until mid-May.

Six-plus years later, Damon's gambit worked, and it had a double benefit. Because the Phillies' outfielders throw well and tend to play shallow, Thomson said, it gave Damon a much better chance to score on a single.

And, Long said, by going to third, Damon may have kept Lidge from using his slider. It has been Lidge's best pitch recently, including Sunday night, but with Damon on third, if Lidge missed with a slider for a wild pitch, it would mean a run.

So after Lidge hit Teixeira with a pitch, Rodriguez saw two fastballs -- and ripped the second for a go-ahead double.

"I mean, for me the whole key of that whole inning was an unbelievable tenacious at-bat by Johnny Damon," Rodriguez said. "This guy is just a great competitor, and then goes first pitch and then goes to third. Put us in a position to get a big hit there in the ninth."