Mr. Damon, you are dead to me.

Although… it pretty much seemed fait accompli as soon as I heard about the front office making calls on Jeremy Reed. Calling on Jeremy friggin’ Reed while one of the game’s premier leadoff hitters and agent provocateurs is off behind the bleachers with Steinbrenner and Torre? Unacceptable. Either Lucchino and the Wonder Twins were already tired of dealing with Scott Boras’ goofy mug, or they simply looked long and hard into Damon’s eyes and heard Barry Manilow singing, “Those dreams of yours/Are calling on distant shores/And if they’re driving you away/I have no right to make you stay.”

Whatever the case, there’s a certain sickness I feel reading Damon’s quotes in today’s Globe:

We know George Streinbrenner always wants to have the best players and he showed that tonight. He and Brian Cashman came after me hard and now I’m a part of the Yankees and a great lineup. We’re going to be tough to beat.

It wasn’t tough to see this coming. Damon’s love of the limelight. New York’s love of assigning teams of photogs to follow celebs and sports heroes around town, through the nightclubs, into the gastroenterologist’s, etc. If he got a couple thousand people to skip work and watch him shave in Boston, just think of the after-hours delights that await in the Apple. Many of them, from what I understand, involve greasepaint.

So now we need a leadoff hitter. And a center fielder. And a shortstop. And a first baseman. And a hot wife. For the love of god, who’s gonna be the new Michelle Damon? Curse you, Lucchino and crew, for not thinking of the little man, the guy sitting at home with his remote control and six of Pabst who doesn’t have a silicone-enhanced, ex-stripper trophy wife to sashay around the house in a dazzling cashmere sweater-and-thong combo, light his cigars, play TV host on NESN and take the sting out of every Sox loss with a slow bernaise sauce rubdown. To you, I offer a patented “double bird” [see me standing in front of my computer, waving two middle fingers at the screen? Those are for you, buddy. And feel free to take one home to your sister.] and a wish that you find your stockings full of nothing but naked photos of Milton Berle and Buddy Ebsen. You’ve f–ked up my Christmas but good, you sniveling rubes. And the thought of a summer without a Damon — either Johnny or Michelle — has just made it a few degrees colder in my house.

If you need me, I’ll be in the can. In the meantime, when collecting the votes, put me down for “this sucks mightily.”