Local sports journalism is the worst

Making fun of regional or local sports media members isn't something I like to do.  But when it's Jeter Month here at FJayM, we throw out all the rules.  (Note, there is still one rule: no outside food please.)

I'm sure not many people (relative to the population of the United States) read the Poughkeepsie Journal every day, but if you had read it last month, you would have found this gem.  The question is: Jeter?  And the answer, as explained to us by some jackass named Dan who writes for the Poughkeepsie Journal, is: Jeter.

This is a plea to the Baseball Writers’ Association of America to bend the rules. It’s been done before, so do it again.

He's begging you: please give Jeter the Rookie of the Year again in 2014.  Wouldn't it be a perfect way to send him off?

Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera deserve to be inducted together into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2019.

You seem to think deserve means "Would be kind of neat since they played together for so long."  I tend to lean more towards "Has earned whatever the honor in question is, based on merit."  But really, think of it this way: if both get inducted at the same time, WILL THERE BE ENOUGH HOTEL ROOMS AVAILABLE IN COOPERSTOWN THAT WEEKEND?

It’s the right thing to do. 

Yankees fans are the worst people in America.

Jeter and Rivera came up through the New York Yankees organization together, won five World Series titles together with class on and off the field, 

There it is!  If you had "Third paragraph" in your "When will the author bring up the classy classiness of two guys who made millions playing baseball without murdering anyone?" pool, go collect your winnings.

and belong together on the stage in Cooperstown delivering their induction speeches on the same July day in 2019.

Look, if anything, why don't the writers just decline to vote for Rivera in 2019, delaying him a year so Jeter and him can go in together in 2020?  Better yet, why not just follow the rules that are in place and stop washing Jeter's balls?  I know I'm overusing that, I don't care.  I like the way it reads.

Yes, this will require bending the rules because a player must be out of the game for five years before being on the Hall of Fame ballot. Jeter and Rivera are deservedly both first-ballot Hall of Famers, but are slated to enter the hall one year apart if chosen on their respective first ballot.

So why not bend the rules? It’s been done before and for Yankee greats. Lou Gehrig — the only player on a special ballot — was elected in a special vote at the 1939 Winter Meetings because it was uncertain how much longer Gehrig would live with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — now also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

Wait, does Jeter have a terminal illness?  Is that the reason we should bend the rules for him?  Wow, I hadn't heard that.  Poor guy.

Joe DiMaggio was excluded when the five-year rule was introduced in 1954 because he was close to the 75 percent needed for election. He was elected in 1955 despite retiring in 1951.

Wait, is the HOF on the verge of changing the eligibility rules to only requiring four years after retirement, but not until after the 2015 season?  If so, I agree, it's OK to bend the rules for Jeets and let him take advantage of that a season early.

Like Jeter and Rivera, Gehrig and DiMaggio are two all-time Yankee and baseball greats. 

I like how he leaves Clemente out of his analysis.  "Sure, I'll bring up Gehrig, even though his situation has nothing to do with my case for Jeter.  And Clemente's situation was just like Gehrig's.  But why bring up Clemente?  Was he classy?  Only won two championships.  I think that answers that question."

DiMaggio hit in 56 consecutive games, played on nine World Series championship teams and was considered among the best defensive outfielders. Gehrig played in 2,130 consecutive games, won the 1934 Triple Crown and played on six World Series championship teams.

Those guys were awesome.  They were both considerably better than Jeter.  Also, they both got into the Hall earlier than the rulebook says they should have for reasons that were unrelated to "Has another HOF teammate who retired a year earlier, and wouldn't it be kind of neat if they were elected simultaneously?"

Like Gehrig and DiMaggio, Jeter and Rivera had their moments as they became a part of the Yankee lore. Remember Game 7 of the 2003 American League Championship Series, when Rivera’s emotions got the best of him on the mound after throwing three shutout innings and watching Aaron Boone’s game-winning home run against the Red Sox?

Look, I can't say my favorite team has ever "won" a "World" "Series," but I'll talk some trash anyways.  First of all, no, I don't remember Rivera getting emotional in that moment.  I remember Aaron Boone hitting the home run and then everyone going apeshit.  Second of all, remember the 2003 World Series, when the winningest winners of all time failed to win against a team with 1/3rd the payroll?  Not much class exhibited there.  That Josh Beckett, though--he was classy back then.

The next season, Jeter dove full speed into the stands to catch a pop up against the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium. 

Who gives a flying cunt?  Did he deliver a baby while he was in there?  Did he give a kid a full college scholarship?  Jesus fuck, he made an out in a regular season game on a play that most other shortstops would also make.  Holy fucking shit.

And who can forget “the flip” in the 2001 American League Division Series against the Athletics, where Jeter came out of nowhere to grab a throw from outfielder Shane Spencer and flip it to catcher Jorge Posada, who put the tag on Jeremy Giambi in a 1-0 Game 3 triumph? 

Yeah, who CAN forget, given the way tiresome Yankee fans bring it up every five minutes like Jeter was nailed to a cross and rose three days later?

The Yankees went on to win the next two games to claim the best-of-five series.

And went on to not win the World Series.  Look, I'm not saying they didn't also win several other World Series with Jeter and Rivera.  But facts are facts.  I'm hatin' here.  Don't try to stop me.

Here are some of Jeter’s and Rivera’s numbers:

Jeter is the only player to collect 3,000 hits in a Yankee uniform, sports a .312 career batting average and can finish his career among the top-5 players all-time in hits with 201 hits this season. In the postseason, the longest-tenured captain in Yankee history is a .308 lifetime hitter.

Rivera is Major League Baseball’s all-time saves leader with 652, has the lowest career all-time earned run average (2.21) for pitchers throwing at least 1,000 innings in the live-ball era and was one of the top fielding pitchers of the modern era. In the postseason, he ranks first all time with a 0.70 earned average and 42 saves.

Here are their numbers: Jeter's are good, slightly above average for a Hall of Fame middle infielder.  Rivera's are dominant, although he only participated in 80 or 90 innings per season.  So shouldn't we change the rules for these guys?  WHO SAYS NO?

Jeter and Rivera only wore the Yankee uniform in the era of free agency and were never mentioned in conversations of using performance enhancement drugs.

Again, congratulations to both of them for succeeding where literally dozens of MLB players have failed.

Rivera was deserving of the attention on his farewell tour in 2013 and the same can be said for Jeter in 2014. They are great role models and ambassadors for Major League Baseball.

They are not role models.  They are not heroes.  They do not ooze class from their pores.  The 2001 flip play did not turn Jeter into Mother Teresa.  These guys played baseball and were awesome at it.  Now they will be honored with baseball's greatest recognition of career achievement.  I know it might cause the Earth to fly off its axis and directly into the sun if they are forced to do it 365ish days apart due to preexisting rules that have only been broken in extremely exceptional circumstances, but that's a risk I think we'll have to take.  Breathe deeply.  We'll get through this.

They’re definite first-ballot hall of famers, but baseball and the writers should do this duo justice by inducting them together into the Baseball Hall of Fame Class of 2019.

I hate this man and I hate Derek Jeter and I hate all of you.  Good night.

MMTMQR: Gregg! (Part 1 of many, or more realistically, part 1 of maybe like 2 or 3)

Finally!  After four long cold months of summer, ESPN's resident science fiction commentator is back in the saddle.  AND HE'S GOT SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT WHETHER OR NOT "JOHN CARTER" WAS REALISTIC THAT WILL MELT YOUR BRAINS.

Suspended coaches, defamation claims, thousands of former players suing the NFL, sickening crimes and a cover-up at highest levels at Penn State, retired NFL stars saying they wouldn't let their own sons play football -- it's been a tumultuous offseason. Football generates more news than some entire nations.

Wild, isn't it?  You don't really hear much about Finland or Uruguay or Malawi on American news networks, but you do hear a lot about college and pro football.  Who would have thought that would be the case in a country obsessed with celebrity and athletic achievement?

But football's really important offseason development occurred on the field behind your local elementary school. The Pop Warner organization decided to limit contact in practice.

As evidence continues to mount of the long-term danger of concussions -- both from big hits and from the accumulated impact of lesser blows to the head -- anything that makes football safer trumps all other concerns about the sport combined. 

I'm pretty sure a super high-level coverup of institutionalized child rape that more or less happened because of football is at least as important as that.

As Tuesday Morning Quarterback endlessly reminds, there is no law of nature that says football must be popular. 

What a fantastic straw man that little lecture is built around.  As if there are football fans out there who say "Who cares about all this concussion stuff?  Even if the NFL lost a $50 billion class action lawsuit related to concussion safety, nothing would change.  There is a 100% guarantee that pro football will always exist and be popular, no matter what!  It's in the Bible I think!"

If large numbers of Americans become disgusted by neurological harm caused by the sport, the popularity of football could wane.

Holy shit!  Move over, Adam Smith!  If millions of Americans stopped being interested in football, the level of interest millions of Americans have for football could drop!

As for Tuesday Morning Quarterback, I'm back and I'm bad! Well, I'm back. 

No, no, don't sell yourself short, we go through this every year.  You definitely suck balls.

To kick off the return of the football artificial universe, below is TMQ's annual review of offseason lowlights.

"Here's a bunch of shit, most of it unrelated to football, because it's football season again."

"We'll Have Fun, Fun, Fun 'Til the Assisted-Living Director Takes the T-Bird Away:" Brian Wilson, founder of the Beach Boys, a band that celebrated endless summer, turned 70.

/game show buzzer

Come on man, save your A material for later in the show!  Warm the audience up a little before you start hitting them with zingers like that.

Few Know the "S" in ESPN Stands for Sciences: Three times as many Americans watched the Super Bowl as watched the Academy Awards. Possible explanations:'

The Super Bowl ended before dawn, Zulu time.

The Super Bowl is presented by the NFL, not by the Academy of Gridiron Arts and Sciences. The Oscar organization still insists on calling itself the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Sciences!

The Super Bowl was entertaining.

Stop!  Stop!  You're killing up there!  Also, we all know the real reason Gregg likes to take shots at Hollywood.

Knicks Management Has Taken Prompt, Decisive Steps to Ensure the Playoff Appearance Is Not Repeated: The Knicks got their first playoff win in 11 years. Will the Bills, New York state's only NFL team, get their first playoff appearance in 11 years?

I enjoy his borderline obsession with pointing the state in which teams play.  He does that "records by state" thing at the end of every season, he's got that fucktarded Jersey A/Jersey B thing going, etc.  GUYZ THE CHIEFS ARE ACTUALLY FROM MISSOURI AND THE REDSKINS PLAY IN MARYLAND.  JUST THOUGHT YOU SHOULD KNOW HOW CLEVER I AM.  Not only is it a dumb waste of time and brain cells, but to the extent that it's interesting (not much of one) it only applies to a handful of teams.  Chiefs, Jets, Giants, Patriots (sort of) and Redskins.  With everyone else, it's like, yeah, call me Ken fucking Jennings if you must, but the Broncos actually play in Colorado.  True story.  FUCK YOU GREGG.

Sci-Fi Line of the Offseason: "The man I loved wouldn't destroy the entire universe. That just doesn't sound like William."

There were so many deserving candidates, but I'm glad he picked that one.  It deserved to win.

One of the worst aspects of Hollywood 

Besides those profitmongering Jews

is when dead characters suddenly are alive again, with little or no explanation. On "Fringe," William Bell is a mad scientist played by Leonard Nimoy, who was Mr. Spock in the original "Star Trek." The recently concluded fourth season brought Nimoy back from the dead for the second time.

Nimoy is the Big Bad of "Fringe": He keeps unleashing mass-murder biological weapons, triggering natural disasters and loosing evil shape-shifters, all for unclear reasons. 

I bet it's actually really clear if you pay attention to the show.  He's just too busy sipping brandy out of a crystal glass and savoring the aroma of his own gassers to pay proper attention.

Perhaps now that "Fringe" has been renewed for a fifth and final season, viewers finally will find out what the Nimoy character is up to. First, the writers have to find out.

Who the fuck watches "Fringe?"

Curiosity Rover Lands on Mars to Search for "John Carter" Greenlight Memos: "John Carter," the most expensive motion picture ever made -- despite no location shooting on Mars! -- was a bust at the box office. TMQ thinks computer-generated special effects are ruining the movies, because when extended portions of films are obviously fake, the Hollywood magic is gone.

If you are OK with equating "presence of Hollywood Magic" (I capitalized the M because the way he used it in his previous sentence makes it sound like True Yankeeism) with "something that moviegoers find very appealing and will pay to go see," the argument that CGI bullshit is ruining the Magic falls apart pretty quickly thanks to that delightful old jagoff James Cameron.  If you would prefer to define the presence of Hollywood Magic in a different way, you're welcome to, but I think you'll be pretty lonely.

Consider 2012's "Red Tails," whose CG action scenes were so fake they didn't vaguely resemble flying. Compare to the 1927 flick "Wings," which had flying scenes that are still thrilling because they were done in the air with real planes.

And fewer Jews involved with production!  OK, I'll stop, I just can't believe this guy is still employable by a major corporation after what he wrote.  Fucking astonishing.

You've guessed by now that TMQ thinks "John Carter" was a good movie. The Edgar Rice Burroughs books about Mars depict multiple civilizations: "John Carter" included too many, making initial sequences hard to follow. The trailers were incoherent, and the title was a dud. Still, "John Carter" was a movie well worth seeing -- haunting and exotic. If you skipped this flick in theaters, rent it.

He doesn't seem like an overly aggressive company man, or the type to be bought off easily.  But let us never, ever forget who owns ESPN and who also produced John Carter.  Let us just keep that in mind.  

Eyelids heavy.  See you tomorrow, sci-fi fans and people who enjoy reading about low to midlevel government scandals.

If Anyone Knows Anything About Playoff Success, It' Reggie Jackson

You sure can't tag this article "anecdotal bullshit", because this is Reggie F'in Jackson talking. I realize that the baseball world is inundated with A-Rod and Yankees crap lately, but this article from the NY Post seems particularly egregious to me. So here goes:

"Meet the New Mr. October: Reggie Believes A-Rod Will Keep On Rollin"

"Rollin"?

October 3, 2007 -- The man who spit in the face of October pressure believes Alex Rodriguez won't be smothered by it for the third straight postseason.

“I think he will do super well," Reggie Jackson said yesterday ...

"SUPER" well, Reggie? Is that really what you meant to say? "I think he willl do SUPER well!"? Up until now, I thought Reggie Jackson was pretty manly; now I think he's a bit effeminate.

“Look at the year he had. You can't have a better year than he had. Who was the last guy to roll into the postseason with the kind of year he had this year?"

Albert Pujols, last year.

Jackson knows what makes Rodriguez tick;

Which is? A watch battery? Lime jello? Strippers? Boos? His Collector's Edition DVD of Mallrats?

Oh. You're not going to tell me. Darn.

understands that despite the MVP season, there are people waiting to empty their lungs with boos for the one guy who the spotlight will be on from beginning to end.
“They booed him from the start this year," said Jackson, who will be with the Yankees for today's workout at Jacobs Field.

Yawn.

Loudly booed when he dropped a foul pop in the first inning on Opening Day, Rodriguez turned the boos to a summer full of cheers, and chants of “MVP, MVP" and finished with 54 homers, 156 RBIs and a .314 average. Now, that success is something Jackson believes Rodriguez is going to lean on.

“He got off to a great start and never stopped," Jackson said. “And it wasn't all smooth. He couldn't have gone through anything tougher than what happened to him in Toronto and the family situation. It wasn't like he got a free pass."

Hyperbolic crap. He could've gone through something much worse. In fact, word has it that A-Rod and his wife are expecting another child. It could've been much tougher; he could've been hit by a bus. Except most bus drivers are better at driving buses than baseball writers are at writing about baseball.

Is Rodriguez's regular season enough for him to bounce back from an 0-for-4 effort in a Game 1 defeat?

This is quite the non sequitur Is he referring to the past or speculating about the future? The Yankees haven't even started playing their series yet!

Remember in 2005, Rodriguez was coming off a year in which he would be voted the MVP and soiled the bed in the ALDS against the Angels when he batted .133 (2-for-15) and set the record for the most inhales and exhales at the plate. The deeper the breath, the worse the at-bat.

I am good at remembering this because writers like you have mentioned it in every article this season.

Rodriguez promised in March this year was going to be different, and it was. Instead of his life being an open book,

huh?

what he said was measured and rarely in depth. Now, on the verge of his fourth - and possibly last - postseason as a Yankee, Rodriguez is poised to wash away the stench of 2005 and 2006 (1-for-14; .071 against the Tigers).

“I am focused on 2007," Rodriguez said following a brief workout at Yankee Stadium. “It's a whole new year. I am taking one pitch at a time."

I feel like sports stars have to give cliched bites to writers because that's all the feeble-brained writers can handle. I think it'd be funnier if A-Rod announced, "Fuck it. It's a whole new year. I am taking it TWO pitches at a time, and when I hit TWO home runs at a time maybe you goddamn writers will stop writing about those thirty goddamn at bats!"

Since Indians starter C.C. Sabathia is murder on lefties - they hit .203 (41-for-202) against him - a larger responsibility falls on Derek Jeter and Rodriguez, who are a combined 19-for-39 (.487) against the lefty they haven't seen since Sept. 1, 2004.

Poorly written. Sentence is too long; separate last clause into independent sentence. I will now stop picking on grammar.

And you know who will get the blame if Jeter and Rodriguez don't hit Sabathia and the Yankees lose, right? It won't be Jeter.

Which is a damn shame, because it seems to me that in your previous sentence, you said that Jeter and Rodriguez share the responsibility. It's too bad you asshole writers are willing to assign Jeter a share of the responsibility, but you know goddamn well that you won't assign Jeter a share of the blame.

“When you come to New York you get invited to the dance every year," Rodriguez said. “You keep getting chances."

Wow. This is competes with the opening quote for "Most Effeminate Thing Said By Current or Former Yankee Superstar". I wonder if A-Rod was sad about not getting invited to dances every year when he was in high school. Or maybe when he played in Texas.

With the right to opt out of the final three years of his contract, this could be Rodriguez's final chance to win a World Series in pinstripes. It's a chance Jackson believes Rodriguez will finally cash in on.

“He has got to be digging himself," Jackson said. “If that was me, I would be digging myself once a day. The year he had was unbelievable."

Digging himself? I don't think I even know what that means. Speak English, Reggie, or at least spit your candy bar out when you're talking.

Now we will see how it ends. Will it be a springboard or an albatross? The guy who had put Mr. in front of October is betting on the former.

YOU BE THE JUDGE!

If you think A-Rod is cool, turn to page 81, then buy this poster and send it to George King.

If you think A-Rod sucks, go back to page 1 and realize that this is what real baseball fans want to do to you.

some idiot yankees fan who gets his blog published on foxsports.com uses ridiculous hyperbole

here's an excerpt from this pointless entry/column about how gary sheffield is an idiot. it's not that gary sheffield isn't an idiot, but really, yankeemike2k7, don't you think you're going a little bit out on a limb here? re: sheff's recent dumb comments on joe torre and derek jeter:

Naturally he’ll claim the “taken out of context” card on this one, and he already has, claiming that Derek is one of his friends, and the editors can make it look however they want. But Gary Sheffield has no context, his context is anger. His context is a chip on his shoulder. His context is I can only trust myself. He’s been that way his entire career, and now he thinks he can tear down the characters of two men whom each have more character than 20 million Gary Sheffield’s. Two men whose names will live on long after Sheffield’s is only a shriveled memory to future generations of his own family.

wow. just.... wow. i hope sheffield doesn't read this. he'll probably go ballistic and hit like 20 HR in his next 5 games if he does.

tRUE yANKEE completely unaware of the existence of non-tRUE yANKEES

derek jeter, on roger clemens and his pursuit of 350 wins (he's just one short as of this morning):

"It's longevity and consistency," Jeter said. "I don't think you'll see anyone else get to that number."

ummmm. derek. greg maddux has 339.

True Yankee Alert!

Scott Miler of Sportsline has this to say in his blog:

What must manager Joe Torre have been thinking in the fifth inning of Saturday's game when second baseman Robinson Cano made a lazy, half-hearted throw to first base after fielding Shawn Green's grounder -- and was stunned when Green beat it out? Hint: Whatever it was Torre was thinking, we'll never know. You want to debate whether Alex Rodriguez is a True Yankee? As great as Cano has been, that's not the nonsense True Yankees ever pulled.

For a moment, Scott had me confused. Capitalizing True Yankee made me think that he was parodying the term after the mention of A-Rod... but the the last sentence convinces me otherwise.

For comparison's sake, let's look at a famous True Yankee, who played his balls off and became so good at Playing the Right Way that he even got to manage the Yankees. Conveniently, he plays the same position as Mr. Cano. Meet Billy Martin. Upon looking up his numbers, I was astounded at how below-average they are. His career OPS+ is 81, and he never had a season over 93. Robinson Cano, in only two seasons, has already managed a season at 132.

Yet if you ask any Lallis on the street, I'm sure Martin is a True Yankee and Cano is not. Apparently, becoming a True Yankee doesn't require greatness. It requires two things: 1. the ability to throw the ball hard from second to first, and 2. a Napoleonic complex.