Johnny Damon changed baseball with his patient approach at the plate. The two-time World Series champion racked up 2,769 hits, 1,668 runs, and 408 stolen bases during his 18-year MLB career.
He was one of the best leadoff hitters ever, but what made him special went beyond the stats.
“Some guys in the leadoff spot go up there and start hacking right away,” Damon recently told CBS Sports. “Well, your team hasn’t learned anything. But I learned.”
Damon became famous for wearing pitchers down. One talent evaluator called him one of the greatest grinders at the plate in baseball history. He took pride in hitting well with two strikes and often fouled pitches off on purpose just to see more from the starting pitcher.
His approach was shaped during his one year with the Oakland A’s during the famous “Moneyball” era under Billy Beane.
“What we wanted to do was see as many pitches as we could early in the game. See if we could get that starter to 30 pitches in the first inning or get him to 50 in the next inning or maybe 70 in the third and now they’re getting their bullpen ready,” he explained.
The strategy wasn’t just about his own at-bats.
“If you can wear out their bullpen in the first game of the series, it could be shot for the whole series.”
This approach helped teams get past dominant pitchers like Roger Clemens and Pedro Martinez by driving up their pitch counts and forcing managers to go to their bullpens earlier than planned.
Damon knew he’d only be in Oakland for that single season. He wanted to return to the East Coast for family reasons. While he believes some “Moneyball” concepts are overrated, the focus on overworking starting pitchers stuck with him and helped shape modern baseball strategy.
He brought this patient approach to Boston, where it paid huge dividends.
“Everyday, just grinding these at-bats to make Big Papi’s and Manny’s jobs a lot easier, I would wear down these pitchers and these guys would be like, ‘OK, it’s time for us to do our thing.’ And they had monster years every season I was there.”
“I did want to see a lot of pitches, but mostly for my teammates. I was always a team guy.”
His impact on the leadoff position was huge. Today, teams across baseball emphasize tiring out starting pitchers to get into bullpens as quickly as possible.
Now in retirement, Damon is looking to make a similar impact in a completely different field: sports drinks.
The Orlando, Florida native founded a hydration beverage company called A-GAME after hearing tragic news about high school athletes in his home state.
“A lot of kids were falling over,” Damon told Fox Business last year. “It was a very hot summer here in central Florida, and we lost a few kids. I mean, they died from being dehydrated. You can blame it on the weather. You can blame it on the coaches telling them to go run. But if they don’t put the right ingredients in their body, it’s not going to work.”
A-GAME’s selling point is “no fake stuff.” The drinks contain honey, sea salt and essential vitamins, minerals, and carbohydrates. They also offer zero-sugar options.
Damon has assembled an impressive team for his venture, including sports legends Bo Jackson and Tim Hardaway, current U.S. Men’s National Team player Tyler Adams, celebrity chef Scott Conant, and country music singer Tracy Lawrence.
“We are going to continue to try to push and to have the best possible sports drink out there,” he said. “We want to have the absolute best for these young athletes, these weekend warriors, for everybody.”
