Sunday, September 19, 2010

Jeter the "cheater"

It's been a couple of days, but I couldn't resist writing about Derek Jeter and his supposed "cheating" act on Wednesday against the Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays. The whole thing just makes me laugh.

Do I think his actions were lame? Of course I do. Was it cheating? Yeah, technically. But it's nothing that doesn't happen daily around the league with little fanfare. Do I think this should be the impetus for Major League Baseball to expand its use of video replay? Good God, no. Baseball is slow enough as it is. Even if I did support the expanded use of replay (and I do, to a point, but I think most of the problems could be solved if MLB umps could swallow their egos and confer as a group more frequently, as NFL referees do), to allow its use on foul ball/hit-by-pitch situations would be ridiculous.


The real issue here is a fawning sports media caught off-guard by a man who they have gone out of their way to deify for nearly two decades. The treatment of Jeter has always been silly. A fantastic hitter with an average glove, he's been put up on a pedestal as "The Captain", the "guy who always plays the game the right way", and by God, he even calls Joe Torre "Mr. Torre"!! Let's all let him date our daughters.

ESPN columnist Gene Wojciechowski once went so far as to say that if Jeter was determined to have taken steroids, he would quit watching baseball forever. "It seems so, well, beneath him," Wojciechowski wrote. "He is the one player who I actually think would walk away from the game if he thought he had to cheat to compete." Wow, buddy. Check yourself. That's not objective journalism.

Fox announcer Tim McCarver has also been one of the worst offenders. I remember vividly a game against the Red Sox years ago, where Jeter was fooled by an inside fastball, and oops-ed a check-swing nubber down the line toward third base. It somehow stayed fair for an infield single, which opened the fawning floodgates. McCarver would swoon for the better part of the inning about what an amazing "piece of hitting" it was by Jeter, to get on base despite having been badly fooled. His response to the Jeter "hit-by-pitch"? Predictable.
“I cannot understand what the commotion is,” said the Fox baseball broadcaster Tim McCarver, a former major league catcher, as he took stock of the uproar.
“Why question that?” he said of Jeter’s actions. “I can’t believe anyone would say that’s cheating.”
For what it's worth, I actually agree with McCarver on half of his statement. I don't understand the commotion. But the second half, Tim's just wrong. Sorry, dude, but it is cheating. Cheating of the "it's just part of the game" type, which I don't really blame Jeter for at all. I'd have tried the same act if I was out there. Everyone does. But it is (technically) cheating. You're a journalist, and to deny that "he cheated" is a valid response is, again, bad journalism.

The fact is, the media have always looked at Jeter in a bizarre doe-eyed fashion, assuming that everything he does is perfect in every way. This is false. He's an amazing hitter, and I have immense respect for him as one of the best hitters I've ever seen. But he's always driven me crazy specifically because of the treatment he receives from the media. This whole debacle is no exception. It just makes me smile to see so many media members caught so incredibly off guard to learn that their hero is just a ballplayer like everyone else.

[New York Times]

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