Consider arriving for your rookie season with the Royals and discovering that all of Missouri expects you to be the second coming of Hall of Famer George Brett.

Then picture landing in Oakland, where the A's pay you more than even Jason Giambi to be their missing link, a gifted leadoff hitter.

All three times Damon landed in the hot seat he got burned. As fiercely as he battled - and maybe because he fought too hard - he came up short.

Now, as Damon prepares to enter the greatest crucible of his career - a cauldron of expectations stoked by Red Sox fans desperate for a championship - he has a chance to prove once and for all that he can conquer a mighty challenge.

The Sox are counting on the speedy center fielder - with help from Rickey Henderson - to deliver the spark at the top of the lineup they have sorely lacked in recent years. And they have guaranteed him $30 million through 2005.

Fear not, Damon said.

''The way I see it, there's no pressure on me,'' he said. ''I signed a four-year contract and it's going be fun. I'm going to make the most of it.''

With history as a barometer, though, the forecast is cloudy.

Rewind to 1992, Damon's senior year at Dr. Phillips High School in Orlando, when he was rated the top schoolboy prospect in the country by Baseball America and his team was ranked No. 1 by USA Today. He was projected as one of the top five picks in the June amateur draft.

No such luck. Amid the hype, Damon appeared more burdened by his exalted status than emboldened by it, and he eked out only a .306 batting average, unimpressive for a projected first-round draft choice. On draft day, the first round came and went before the Royals selected him 35th overall in the supplemental round.

''Looking back, I think I was just more embarrassed that I was touted as the best player,'' Damon said. ''I was like, `Whatever.' I probably should have been a little cockier, but that wasn't me.''

A straight-A student in high school, he walked away from a baseball scholarship at the University of Florida to sign with the Royals for $300,000, about $500,000 less than he would have gotten had he been selected as high as No. 5.

Damon was as self-effacing off the field as he was talented on it. And he acknowledged as he shot through the minors that he was grappling with the kind of personal challenge that every ballplayer must conquer to succeed.

''My biggest adjustment,'' he told a reporter, ''has been learning not to be afraid to fail.''

Royal treatment

Yet when he arrived for his first full season in Kansas City at 22, Damon was thrust into an environment that almost set him up for failure. The Royals paired him with Brett in television ads that effectively portrayed the kid as taking the torch from the legend. At the same time, the Kansas City Star concluded ''the Royals' success at the gate and in the stands in 1996 - and arguably the Royals' future in Kansas City - is tied to the success of Johnny Damon.''

Aggravating matters, manager Bob Boone batted Damon third on Opening Day, only to pinch hit for him after he went 0 for 3.

''That didn't help my confidence that year or the next year,'' Damon said.

Nor did the comparison to Brett. Just as the No. 1 rating in high school threw him off, so did landing on a pedestal next to an icon.

''With people comparing me to George, I was embarrassed by that, too,'' he said. ''I probably should have been a little more cocky, like a lot of the guys who come up now [from the minors].''

Still, his rookie season was no washout. He hit .271, stole 25 bases, and scored 61 runs. But it wasn't until Tony Muser replaced Boone as manager during the '97 season that Damon began to blossom.

''He put the confidence back in me,'' Damon said. ''He said, `You're going to be a star in this game and you're going to make a lot of money, but you just have to be confident and start going about your business the way you know how.'''

Over the next three seasons, Damon hit .304 for the Royals and averaged nearly 114 runs and 36 steals a year, seizing his place as one of the premier leadoff hitters in the game. His 2000 season was sensational; he hit .327 and led the league in runs (136) and steals (46).

He was a year shy of free agency, and he balked at signing a multiyear contract with the Royals, saying he was tired of losing. Still, he seemed hurt that he was traded to the A's in January 2001 in a three-way deal with the Devil Rays after his magnificent season.

''It was like, `Wow, this isn't sacred anymore,''' Damon said. ''Once that first jersey gets stripped off your back, it makes it different.''

Uncharacteristic slump

He signed a one-year deal with the A's for $7.1 million, the highest salary on the team. But again he fell short of expectations, this time miserably. He hit only .211 in April and was still hitting .211 as late as June 18, a leadoff batter gone bust.

''When Johnny first came over,'' Giambi said, ''I think he put a lot of pressure on himself because he was supposed to be that missing link for us.''

Damon attributed his struggle to numerous factors, from trying to adapt to Oakland's patience-driven hitting philosophy to the loneliness of living without his wife, Angie, and their twins, Madelyn and Jackson, who remained in Kansas City. He finished the season with a career-worst .256 batting average, though he scored 108 runs and stole 27 bases.

This year will be different, he vowed. But his first challenge will be overcoming his history as a slow starter (he has a career April average of .250). He even is bracing for the backlash from the Fenway bleachers if he proves punchless in the first few weeks.

''I don't want it to be part of my makeup,'' he said of starting sluggishly. ''I want the fans to tell me to turn it on. Maybe that's what I need. If I get off to a slow start and people are telling me, `You're horrible, you suck,' I don't want to hear that, so that's going to drive me to do better.''

Only so much can hurt him, though. Damon carries the memory of his high school teammate, Scott Muhlhan, who died of skin cancer at 23.

''He called me when he was near death,'' Damon said. ''I asked him if I should fly in to see him. He said, `There's nothing you can do. I'm going to go peacefully. You need to go out there and knock 'em dead.'''

Few players work harder than Damon, who has played an average of 152 games a year in his six full seasons. He competes with the kind of passion that prompted him in 1997 to charge the mound when Mark Petkovsek, then with the Cardinals, hit him with a pitch. That incident came a season after Damon crashed into White Sox catcher Chad Kreuter so hard that Kreuter needed surgery to repair his left shoulder, which was severely separated and fractured in several places.

No one questions Damon's drive. But don't expect him to lose too much sleep if he struggles.

''When you have a friend die young, you realize the game isn't as important as you sometimes make it seem,'' he said. ''That's why I'm not that concerned about an 0-fer or a tough start, because I know I have a chance to pull myself out of it. Unfortunately, Scott didn't have that chance.''

This story ran on page D4 of the Boston Globe on 3/29/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.