Mike Celizic

All that talk about fiscal responsibility and losing money and staying within the budget just went out the window. The Evil Empire is back in business.

Johnny Damon isn’t the best center fielder in baseball, just a modest upgrade over Bernie Williams, whose years as an every-day outfielder are over. Damon’s arm is too weak to qualify him as great defensively. He’s 32 and in the late years of his prime, and he’s battled shoulder problems over the past couple of years.

Those are the negatives, but I’m not putting him down. I’ve been a big Damon fan for years, and he brings everything a team can ask for to the clubhouse — charisma, sound bites, character, a lunch-bucket attitude, high energy. He’s a leader, the kind of guy who finds a way to get the job done, a clutch player in the Paul O’Neill-Scott Brosius-Tino Martinez mold. It’s just a shame that he’ll have to lose the Jesus look to comply with George Steinbrenner’s tonsorial policies. But Damon’s been reasonably clean-cut before. He’ll deal with it.

And if he’s not the best center fielder in the game, he’s the best the Yankees could get. Torii Hunter was perhaps available, but he would have cost the team’s two young stars, pitcher Chien-Ming Wang and second baseman Robinson Cano. Most other possibilities would either have taken what few prospects the Yankees have in trade or would have been nothing more than stop-gaps — Mike Cameron-sort of guys.

Damon comes with a four-year, $52-million price tag, which is just about exactly what left fielder Hideki Matsui signed for. With Gary Sheffield in right, that gives the Yankees a very expensive outfield, but who cares?

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Hey, they got rid of Kevin Brown’s $14 million and if they re-sign Bernie Williams, it will be for a lot less than he was making. So, even if the payroll isn’t going down substantially, it will go down a little.

But Yankee fans don’t care about how much anyone makes, just what kind of player he is. And Damon is a guy who will delight the home crowd in every way imaginable.

First, they get an outfielder who’s just as popular as Williams, the man he’s replacing. Second, they finally get that lead-off hitter who’s going to allow Derek Jeter to drop back into his natural spot in the lineup, the two-hole.

Third, they’re looking at the deepest line-up they’ve seen in decades — Damon and Jeter setting the table, then probably Alex Rodriguez, Sheffield, Matsui and Giambi, and there’s not a better one-through-six in the game. There’s probably 700 runs in those six hitters, and you still haven’t gotten to the DH, who will probably be Bernie Williams, then Jorge Posada and Cano.

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Finally, there’s the sheer delight in stealing the Red Sox’s lead-off hitter and most popular player. It’s the kind of power play the Yankees excel at. According to reports, Boston president Larry Lucchino, who actually does have a budget, didn’t even try to match New York’s offer. As happens so often, the Yankees saw their man and buried him in more money than anyone else could afford to pay.