01:00 AM EST on Thursday, December 22, 2005

BY ART MARTONE
Journal Sports Editor

Despondent over the loss of Johnny Damon?

Jed Hoyer has a message for you.

"This is a team sport," the Red Sox co-general manager said. "This is not a superstar sport."

And he has some examples:

"Last year the best center fielder [Carlos Beltran] on the market [supposedly] destroyed the Astros' season by leaving in January," he said, "and they went to a World Series with a rookie [Willie Tavares] in center field."

Need more?

"Johnny Damon and Jason Giambi left the A's at the end of the 2001 season," he said, "and all they did [in 2002 was] win 103 games.

"This sport is not driven by stars," he concluded. "It's driven by putting the best 25-man roster on the field."

That was the main message that the Boston brass -- Hoyer, fellow GM Ben Cherington and president/CEO Larry Lucchino -- attempted to put forth yesterday at a press conference at Fenway Park, called less than a day after Damon left the Red Sox and accepted a four-year, $52-million offer from the Yankees. And the secondary message was equally clear: The Sox don't think the loss of Damon will prevent them from competing in the A.L. East next season, or in the seasons beyond.

"We have no question that we are going to find a center fielder and we're going to have a very good team next year," Hoyer said. "So I don't think not signing Johnny Damon means the Red Sox aren't going to be very good next year."

Nor, despite the rising levels of panic in Red Sox Nation, does the team feel pressured to make an immediate move to replace Damon.

"It's December 22. It's not April 5," said Cherington. "Think about the time that is going to pass between now and Opening Day. It's 3 1/2 months. Think back at how much has happened in the last 3 1/2 months."

"That's a good point," concurred Lucchino. "We're barely halfway through the offseason. So understand that there is still plenty of time and plenty of financial resources to re-deploy to strengthen this team in 2006 and for the years thereafter."

That these Red Sox are a work in progress is beyond question. As it currently stands, they have no established first baseman, no shortstop and no center fielder. They also have two second basemen and two third basemen . . . not to mention a left fielder/cleanup hitter who has asked to be traded.

Which would only be a problem, the Sox point out, if the season started tomorrow.

"We've got [holes] to fill," said Cherington. "There are a lot of different ways to fill [them] and we're going to try and fill [them] in the right way, and not fill [them] in the quickest way."

Hoyer, Cherington and Lucchino were short on specifics yesterday. No names were mentioned as potential replacements for Damon (or shortstop Edgar Renteria or first baseman Kevin Millar), no strategies (be they trade or free agency) were laid out for finding those replacements, and no timetables were set for making their moves.

Most of it was spent lauding Damon as a player and a person, hinting at -- but never openly voicing -- dissatisfaction at the negotiating tactics of Damon's agent, Scott Boras, and, in one case, directly answering Damon, who, in a Tuesday night interview with Boston's Channel 4, accused the team of "courting" center fielders such as Seattle's Jeremy Reed and Cleveland's Coco Crisp.

" 'Courting' implies that we were after these guys and somehow expressed interest we have to them," said Hoyer. "Yes, we've inquired with teams about different center fielders. We would be irresponsible if we didn't do that. We have a responsibility to put someone in center field, and Johnny had a right to leave, so of course we looked at different players in center field.

"To call that 'courting' is overstating it because that's just our responsibility. That's part of this business. He had . . . a right to talk to other teams and we had an obligation to look for alternatives."

The Sox said they didn't receive word from Boras that Damon was leaving until nearly midnight Tuesday, almost two hours after the news had broken in the media. "The last stages of this did come as a surprise to us," said Lucchino.

Boston had made Damon a four-year, $40-million offer at baseball's winter meetings in Dallas two weeks ago, and hinted it wasn't the last, best proposal. ("I think it's fair to say that we left the door ajar for a subsequent formal offer," said Lucchino.) At the time, the Sox told Boras they'd like an answer by Christmas.

Speculation is that when the Yankees decided to make a serious run at Damon, they a) made a financial offer they knew was far beyond Boston's, with b) the stipulation that Boras and Damon not take it back for the Red Sox to match, and c) also imposed a short window to accept the deal before it was pulled off the table.

"If you'd like me to guess," said Lucchino, "there may have been some deadline imposed on [Damon and Boras], some pressure perhaps they felt in the negotiation."

Lucchino says the Sox are fully aware of what they're losing -- both on and off the field -- with Damon in New York.

"It's disappointing losing Johnny Damon,' he said. "He was a great contributor to the success of this club. He was signed here in the middle of December 2001 and since that time has been a team leader. He's been an offensive force. He has been a cult figure. He has been, in some ways, the personification of the franchise and we will miss him."

But don't take it too far, warns Hoyer.

"Fans have a right to be disappointed because over four years they grew to love Johnny as a player, as a person," he said. "That's what we expect, that's wonderful. Johnny has all these wonderful qualities.

"But to imply somehow that the Boston Red Sox as a baseball team are not going to be incredibly competitive next year, or won't win . . . that's just false."