Johnny Damon Quotes

When I entered free agency, I said whatever team I end up on, I'm going to work.

I've got to play free agency out, and I've got to look at all of my options.

Every player looks forward to free agency.

I've been a free agent a couple times now. It's a process. You got to be smart with your decisions.

Well, everybody is trying to make this a money thing. If you send me to another team, let's see what I ask for. I won't ask for nothing. I'll play under the same terms. So it is not Gary wants more money. Gary has money. What else do I need?

Today, free agency takes away a lot of your heroes, they go somewhere else. Some of them don't but a lot of them do-take the higher offer to go somewhere else. And, it turns the fans off because they get attached to the players.

Free agency screws everybody's allegiances up. Whether it be football, baseball, hockey, basketball, whatever it may be. It's really hard.

What's unfortunate about buying a pitcher for $12 million is that he carries no warranty.

And historically the owners have used loyalty to a team or a city to hold players as opposed to always paying their worth.

I have gone from a player who thought he would spend his whole career with one organization to a player who's been with three organizations in a week. It's like rotisserie baseball.

To be candid with you, free agency hurts all sports. It's great for athletes making an enormous amount of money. But to say it helps the sports, I don't believe that.

I can hardly think of any players that have really walked out of their own volition while there were still teams that really wanted them at a fair price.

It is nice to be the most expensive Dutchman, and it is nice for my agent and for Ajax. But it does not matter to me whether I cost €5m or €150m or €200m. I just need to make sure that I do my own thing.

It's been humbling to have multiple teams interested in me and have people talking about my free agency and what I should do.

Now astronomical wages are making it very difficult to take somebody who might not even have a transfer fee attached to them, because of the net value that they want and the net value that they're worth.

Look at all of the pitchers getting six- and seven-year deals at 30, 31, and 32. You see what's going on and the money that's out there. You'd be a fool not to try to benefit from that, or at least try to get what you feel you're worth.

I can't speak on anybody else's free agencies, how that's going, but for myself, it helps to kind of be patient and let it happen.

I love to play for Pittsburgh. If they can't afford me, then I'd love to play in L.A. or New York.

In all my years of being with Pittsburgh, I never encountered a player taking a contract dispute into the season and letting that dispute affect the way he played.

The ability of players to jump teams when their contracts are up has hurt fan loyalty.

I came into the game when I broke into the major leagues, the minimum salary was seven thousand dollars, and I'd have to go home in the wintertime and get a job.

I've seen where teams pay to get a player, like when Los Angeles paid to get Wayne Gretzky.

Pro basketball is a very mercenary endeavor.

I have a hard time believing athletes are overpriced. If an owner is losing money, give it up. It's a business. I have trouble figuring out why owners would stay in if they're losing money.

Obviously, in the NBA, there's a lot of different decisions that people make. The whole thing in the NBA is that people sometimes have an opportunity to go where they want.