To those of us who have disparaged Jeter
First of all, to anyone who may have missed me….I know it’s been a long time. Trying to blog regularly has really increased my respect for people like Jerome Preisler who write for a living. It takes alot of energy to try to wite something that sounds interesting.
I will try to give you all something to read on a more regular basis….Provided you all actually exist.
Anyway, here’s my two cents on the Jeter saga.
While I’m a little dissappointed in Jeter, I’ve also tried to look at this thing from his perspective.
He’s been a Yankee his entire career. He was friends with Alex Rodriguez until Alex disparaged him in an article.
Then out of the blue, A Rod is traded to the Yankees…..Where he promptly establishes himself as the guy who slapped the ball out of Bronson Arroyo’s hand and tried to sell it as a legit baseball play in game seven of the 04 collapse. In the playoff runs after that, he was the guy who disappeared in the playoffs year after year.
Once after being dropped to 8th in the order against Detroit in the ALDS, he made headlines the night after the game by going to a club in NYC and telling the dj to ‘pump up the hip hop’.
He then got tagged as ‘Stray Rod’ after cheating on his wife and the mother of his children.
Then he opted out of his contract in a way that made him, the Yankees and the game of baseball in general look bad during the World Series.
Then after making arguments to the contrary blasing A Rod for opting out and actually praising Jeter for wanting to be a Yankee, Hank Steinbrenner and the rest Yankees brass caved in and signed A Rod to a ten year deal that will pay him at least 20 million dollars a year until his 42 years old.
THEN A Rod got implicated in the steroid mess.
All the while Jeter has been Jeter. He has never been implicated in a scandal involving infidelity because he’s smart enough to not get married. His name has never come up with steroids and he has always handled himself in a way that has been beyond reproach.
My point: Jeter seeing A Rod getting paid after causing the Yankee organization embarrassment and BEFORE he found his post season form in 2009 had to be a little discouraging…..Derek Jeter is human, after all.
And to compare him and his contract situation with that of Mariano Rivera is unfair. While those two wear the same uniform they are different people with different temperments.
It’s really easy to disperage Derek Jeter for wanting to get paid as much as possible. But I can’t say that I wouldn’t do the same if I were in his position….And neither can you.
urbanshawk's Yankee musings 