Would you have booed Johnny Damon if you had been at Fenway last night?

It's been the question du jour, with opinions flying around from every possible angle. Some applauded the majority of those at the park last night, others rolled their eyes and said they were disappointed in the response.

Me? Well, I felt a bit ashamed reading Mama Jackie's column in the Globe. Because much as I know she's right, much as I know I should be mature, I know damn well that I would have booing with the rest of 'em.

It's not mature. It's Red Sox-Yankees rivalry. Damon knows it, Jackie knows it, I know it and the 35,000-odd fans at the park knew it last night.

I really don't hate Johnny Damon. I think the behavior demonstrated in the time leading up to the move to New York was juvenile, and I think it's been laughable, the manner in which he has said he's moved on while demonstrating the exact opposite. Everything in Damon Land winds up relating back to the Sox in some manner. He incessently brings up the decision to relocate. He discusses the fans, the front office. A spotlight in New York, with light tracing back to Yawkey Way. A full-page ad in the Globe, interviews, et al.

Compiled, it's so much that it rings of insincerity.

He was a great Red Sox player, and I adored having him on the team. I don't think the Sox would have won the World Series without him. He's still in a framed place of honor on my wall of photography, stretching out the front of a Duck Boat at the victory parade, a grin on his face as he extended his arm in a victory salute.

The helmet tip could have been seen as classy, were it someone who hadn't already put into motion a calculated approach to keeping the discussion going. I felt it was a manufactured gesture. Cliched.

Which is why I own up and admit wholeheartedly that I chortled with glee upon seeing fake (and real, the word is) money tossed onto the warning track behind his place in center field. And why I most certainly got a kick out of the fact that he went 0-for-4 and that Ortiz's home run (the glorious wind-defying shot that it was) happened to land tantalizingly close to Damon's final spot near the bullpen.

So you know what? I'm sorry, Jackie and those who said it was in poor taste for those in the crowd to heckle him so incessently. I'm not going to try to stand on a soapbox and chastize. I would have been right there, doing the same thing.

And I'm awfully OK with that.

Besides, screw Johnny Damon's return to Fenway. How about Doug Mirabelli? I started cheering in my living room at the glorious sight of a #28 uniform jumping out of the police escort and running breakneck back into the green park in which it belongs...