A Little Part of Me is Still an Angry Blogger

I know, I'm old, and now I apparently listen to NPR, so that's that.  Nobody has posted on this blog in almost two years but I heard something on NPR this morning and it made me want to come here and yell into the void.

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

The Major League Baseball season is a grind. It's about six months, 162 games. So now that we're about halfway through, these guys deserve a few days rest, right? They're getting it. Next week, it's the All-Star break, and the brightest stars from the National and American Leagues face off Tuesday night in Miami. This year, the Houston Astros are sending five players to the All-Star Game. That's a lot of players. That's a big deal. It is a historic turnaround.

Is it really historic? I don't  know. But this is the least offensive thing.  It's going to go downhill from here.

The Astros have had a terrible record for years. They lost 111 games in 2013 alone. This year, they have turned the tables.

Actually, the Astros haven't had a terrible record since 2014.  They were over .500 in 2015 and 2016.  So really the tables turned like three years ago.  This segment is horribly out of date.

 They are the top team in baseball with the LA Dodgers on their heels. Now I have to confess, I don't watch a whole lot of baseball, so I called Jessica Mendoza to explain. She is a former Olympic softball player and now a broadcaster for ESPN. And she says the Astros managed to turn those rough years into an advantage. In Major League Baseball, the worst teams get first dibs on bright young players in the draft.

Good thing we have an expert broadcaster here to explain how baseball's draft works like every single other professional team sport in this country.

JESSICA MENDOZA: So what the Astros were able to do is, because they were bad for so long, they went and got them a Dallas Keuchel, who's their starting pitcher and has been ridiculous - Carlos Correa, who is probably the best young shortstop in a huge fleet of young players that have been stars.

Dallas Keuchel was drafted in the seventh round in 2009, the year after the Astros went...86-75 and finished in the top half of their division.   Also, lolz at "their starting pitcher" and "fleet of young players". I get that perfect  diction on the radio is hard, but it's her job!

Well at least she was right about Carlos Correa.  But this ain't baseball. Going 1-for-2 when you have plenty of time to prepare is not good enough.  All you had to do was look up "George Springer".

BUT WAIT IT GETS WORSE

MARTIN: Switching gears a bit, the All-Star game, as we mentioned, is coming up, and the rosters for that game have been announced. This is, like, the best of the best who play each other. So who were some of the other players - you mentioned a few that you're watching from the Astros - but who are some other players who are having breakout seasons?

Justin Smoak! Jose Ramirez! God bless Zach Cozart! Cody Bellinger!

Uh oh...

MENDOZA: Aaron Judge who's on the Yankees.

Oh no.

I mean, first of all, he's the biggest player that we've ever seen in the sport. 

No.
Not the tallest (he's a full four inches shorter than Jon Rauch), not the heaviest (Calvin Pickering! Walter Young! Jonathan Broxton! Dmitri Young!).  Big? Fine. Biggest player ever? Nope.

OK? So this guy is 6-foot-7, 280 pounds. 

He's not even the biggest guy currently playing on his own team! MTess's cousin is 6-6 3-bills! I would say that's bigger than Judge.

We have never had someone this size and weigh this much be able to play the game.

Dozens of guys in the past decade have been that size and be able to play the game.

BUT THE WORST ISN'T OVER

 But what's impressive about him is the fact that he's been able to adjust his swing and change from where he was last year - struggling, not able to make a lot of contact - to now being the most powerful home run hitter we've seen since pretty much Babe Ruth.

This was the line that set me off.  I've heard a lot of dumb things said and seen a lot of dumb things written about sports, and none of them made me mad enough to go back to blogging on this blog that I started blogging on as a 23-year old blogger. I have three kids and am trying to finish my dissertation, keep my job, and move across the country and I am taking my time to blog about this because it's just the worst thing ever.

Man, it must nice to be a Yankee and be able to play well for half of one &@*&^ season and have broadcasters declare you the second-best power hitter ever. It must be nice to be a broadcaster and roll out of bed, do no research, and say stupid things on national radio.

They go on to describe how great it is that THIS TIME IT DOESN'T COUNT. But that's just filler talk.

On ESPN's programming decisions

Their decisions related to Sunday Night Baseball, specifically.  Deadspin linked to this earlier today, which is awesome--awesome enough for me to start reading Baseball Essential more regularly from now on.  While whoever wrote that post seemed to be trying not to over-editorialize, the results speak for themselves: ESPN, whenever possible, is going to show Yankees-Red Sox (or either of those teams even when they're not playing the other) no matter how those teams are playing.  If it's not one of those two, you've got a really good chance at seeing the Cardinals, Braves, Mets or Dodgers.  Just under 50% of SNB games since 2005 have included at least one of those teams.

Now, obviously I get that other than the Mets, who have sucked since 2009, those teams have all been very successful for most or all of the past decade.  No one wants to watch shitty teams play, so being a good team is a good way to make it into the only nationally televised game of the week that is alone in its timeslot.  But for fuck's sake, look at this graph from that post:



Are you shitting me?  The Blue Jays haven't even been that bad for the last decade.  Sure, no playoff appearances, but they've fielded some decent teams, finishing at or over .500 for 4 of the past 7 seasons and employing a couple different superstar caliber players in that time.  Add to that the fact that they're in the AL East, and thus have to have at least a couple Sunday games against the Yankees or Red Sox every season.  And they haven't been on fucking SNB fucking ONCE?  Christ on a crutch, that's embarrassing.  It's a little less egregious in the case of the Mariners, who have been pretty bad for a while, but their ballpark is awesome and they do have King Felix.  (Admittedly, it's hard to schedule a SNB game a couple months out and be sure he would start that night, but come on.)  ZERO appearances?  Apply similar logic to varying degrees as we go up the graph from right to left along the graph; when you factor in quality of team and size of fanbase, I think the relatively low numbers of White Sox, Rangers, Twins and Brewers games are also infuriating.

The question about these decisions on ESPN's part is one I've tackled a few times on this here blog, and I'm happy to tackle it again, because I am lazy and like recycling my own ideas like an unpaid version of Rick Reilly.  It's a chicken and egg problem--does ESPN only show the teams that seem to have gigantic fanbases all over the country, or are there gigantic fanbases for those first ten or so teams from left to right in part because ESPN (and MLB itself) forces those teams on everyone at every possible turn?  I'm sure the answer is "some of both," but what pisses me off is the way the other three main American sports leagues seem to not be nearly as egregious about this as MLB and its main primetime national TV partner are.

If the Grizzlies and  Trailblazers are both having a great season, ESPN is going to nationally televise their next game and people are going to watch.  If the Jaguars and Titans are both somehow 10-2 in early December, their divisional game is going to get flexed into Sunday Night Football and people are going to watch (apply same logic for ESPN's Monday Night Football scheduling the following season).  The NHL is actually closer to MLB in this regard than the NFL or NBA, as they don't do a particularly great job of promoting teams other than those in eastern Canada/the Great Lakes region/the Northeast, but 1) they don't have an ESPN contract so I know ESPN isn't complicit, and 2) I spend enough time on the hockey internetz to know that fans are most definitely talking quite a bit about the surprising Predators and Lightning this year--certainly more than I'd expect MLB fans to talk about the Astros and Padres if each are in first place come July.

Based on all this, I guess I have to conclude that there's something about baseball fans that pulls them towards the Yankees/Red Sox/etc. moreso than fans from other sports are pulled towards those sports' equivalent franchises.  By way of example, I'm sure the percentage of baseball fans residing Phoenix who are Yankees fans is way higher than the percentage of hockey fans who are (New York) Rangers fans.  But it's still goddamn ridiculous to look at SNB, which could definitely be used as a tool by the league (in dictating to ESPN what games they can choose for their broadcasts) to promote some up and coming teams, and see that the first five matchups in 2015 include Yankees-Red Sox twice, Yankees-Mets, Cubs-Cardinals and Cardinals-Reds.  That's one team slot out of ten filled by a team that isn't on national TV every goddamn week already via either an ESPN weeknight game or FOX's Saturday games.

I guess what I'm trying to say, besides go read that linked article for yourself, is fuck ESPN, fuck MLB, and fuck everything else.  I hate it all.

Jeter Month: In Defense of Jeter

Because boy, does he need it from this guy.  "This guy" (cue up Jon Gruden) is just some no-name blogger.  So, full disclosure and confession from me: this is absolutely the lowest of low hanging fruit.  I know that.  I KNOW.  I feel 100x weirder about breaking this down than I did about breaking down the article from the Poughkeepsie Journal.  But man, this anonymous dude put just enough thought into this, and it's just insane enough, that I felt like covering it anyways when I uncovered it doing a Google search for insane Jeter articles on the other side of the spectrum.  I mean, come on, it's still Jeter Month and I'm getting sick of dumping on Jeter.  This is a borderline insane sports opinion masterpiece, like something Bill Plaschke might write.  Therefore I must treat it as such.  (Since it's by a non-journalist, I'll cut out criticism of grammar, vocabulary, sentence structure, etc.)

Derek Jeter: Hall of Famer?

Yes.  And possibly Pope.

Derek Jeter is one of the most prolific players in Major League Baseball. He's captain of one of the most prestigious teams in the game, the New York Yankees. However, does prestige alone justify a player’s eligibility into the Hall of Fame?

That is a great question, which can be answered by looking at the players in the Hall of Fame.  Since with very, very few exceptions (Veterans Committee guys, usually), the players in the HOF are all somewhere between "awesome" and "unbelievably amazing," I would say that the answer to your question is "No."

I would dare say that the majority of MLB fans would answer "yes" without batting an eye.

No they would not.  This is a horrible, ugly, disfigured straw man.  Please set it on fire.

I partially don't blame them. Hell, Jeter's nickname is "Mr. November" for crying out loud! 

That's not really a "prestige" label.  That's more of a "He happened to hit one really important home run during the World Series (a World Series during which that home run was his only RBI in seven games, and he hit .148/.179/.259 by the way, but hey, I'm supposed to be on his side during this post so I'll drop it) the same year that an unprecedented tragedy caused the World Series to be delayed for a few weeks so the home run came just after 12:01 AM on November 1." label.

When it comes to pressure situations, Jeter may very well be the first name that comes to mind. He is the very definition of clutch. 

It's been said a hundred times, but of course: Jeter regular season: .312/.381/.446.  Jeter postseason: .308/.374/.465.  Jeter 2 outs, RISP: .305/.404/.428.  Jeter "late and close:" .290/.382/.410.  It is not that Jeter is clutch.  It's that he's good all the time, and has had a shitload of chance to be good in the postseason because of the team he plays for, and then dipshits in the media have washed his balls and called him the greatest clutcher who ever clutched a clutch because he has been successful in the postseason at about the rate you'd expect him to be.  Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.

Furthermore, Jeter has 5 World Series championships (including a World Series MVP). Also, he is the winner of 4 golden glove awards and has a career batting average of over 300.

I will agree with all of that, even the reference to the GGs, since I'm trying to pump Jetes' tires here.

With all that said, I still question his legitimacy into the Hall of Fame. 

GO ON.

From my observation, many baseball fans believe he is a first ballot Hall of Famer due to his post season performances. I'm not blaming them. 

I sure am.  He's a first ballot HOFer because of his entire career, his whole body of work.  If he had his same postseason numbers but had hit .220/.290/.330 during the regular season with 1500 career hits, he would not be a HOFer.  And yes, I know, even if that were the case there would still be plenty of zilcheroos who would insist he belonged in the Hall.  But if Scott Brosius didn't make it past one ballot, I don't think imaginary "only good in the postseason" Jeter makes it either.

I think that's how most people do it. 

This man needs new friends.

But sometimes memories can be deceiving. 

Little does he know, he's totally right.  No really, little does he know.  I think this guy started following baseball from his hometown of Worcester MA about three weeks before writing this.

Sometimes fans, myself included, have a narrow view of something based on limited exposure. In Jeter's case, they may only remember a few great moments, and those moments alone may cloud their judgement. 

You don't say.

The following is a list of reasons why I believe Derek Jeter does not deserve to be in the Hall of Fame (if he were to retire today, the 2009 offseason):

He means the offseason after the 2009 season, when the Yankees won the WS.  At this point in his career, Jeter had about 2750 hits, 225 HR, a lifetime .317/.388/.459 slash line, and about 67 rWAR.  He was Barry Larkin (who got in on the 3rd ballot) with a worse glove, but a slightly better triple slash (and 400 more hits), and four additional RINGZZZZ.  He most likely would have been a first ballot guy if he had retired right then.  Whether that happened or not, he was a HOFer, unquestionably.

Top MLB Shortstops

1.) Derek is not the most dominating shortstop in his era.

Ah, this old chestnut.  Start filling out your bingo card.  "Must have been the absolute best at his position during his 'era' (however that's actually defined)" is right next to "Would you buy a ticket to see him play?"

In fact, Derek Jeter isn't even the best shortstop on his team! Alex Rodriguez is the best shortstop in the game, 

This is true.

and Jeter (the Captain) wouldn't even relinquish his throne to the better player. 

This is also true.  But Jeter only did this because he likes to win so much, and knew that his arm wouldn't really play at third, while A-Rod's would.  And they got a World Series out of the arrangement.  QED.

I can easily rattle off four more shortstops that are not only better at the position, but also have a more legitimate bid for the Hall of Fame during his era.

No you can't.

For example, someone who I think should be an automatic bid for the Hall is Omar Visquel. 

BUT WAS HE THE MOST DOMINANT SHORTSTOP IN THE GAME DURING HIS ERA?  Dear God, Omar Vizquel has 12,000 career PAs (17th all time, although Jeter is about to pass him) and 28 dWAR... and still only has 45 rWAR.  He's an interesting HOF case, but if you have 12,000 PAs and can't get to 3,000 hits, and you aren't Ozzie Smith (who was a much better hitter than Vizquel anyways)... I don't think you should go in.

He was an average hitter at the plate, but he's a dominant defensive shortstop. He has the second most glove glove awards with 11 (2 behind Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith). What's even more impressive is that he won it in both the American League and National League.

What's even more impressive is that he happened to play for teams in both leagues, unlike that bum Ozzie Smith!

Number three would have be Jimmy Rollins. 

Through 2009, Jimmy Rollins had 1600 hits, a career OPS+ of 98, and 35 rWAR.

He possesses all-star qualities in every aspect of the game from batting to fielding. 

I like that this guy's argument against Jeter is "Now you can't believe everything you see... you've got to THINK, sheeple!"  And then he's all over Rollins, who is maybe 2/3rds the player Jeter is.

He hits for power 

True, although not as well as Jeter does.

and contact, 

Not true.

steals bases, 

True, although Jeter does too, almost as well.

and hardly makes any defensive mistakes. 

He has a much better glove than Jeter.  Pretty much all shortstops do.  Unfortunately, Jeter is so much better with the bat that it doesn't matter.  Jimmy Rollins is a low OBP guy who in his prime, could hit home runs and steal bases at a slightly better rate than Jeter.  To be fair to this blogger, at the time this was written, Rollins was arguably still in his prime--he just finished his age 30 season on a down note, but was theoretically still capable of doing what he did in his mid 20s.  To be fair to Jeter, even in Rollins's prime (which ended after that 2009 season--he's been hurt/crappy ever since), Rollins wasn't a better overall player than Jeter.

He is a 3-time golden glove winner and holds yearly titles in stolen bases and the 2007 NL MVP award.

He won the stolen base title once, in 2002.  And Jeter's GGs are a hilarious joke, but if we're bringing up Rollins's, we should probably mention that Jeter had four as of this writing.  Also, that MVP vote was a fucking sham.  David Wright and Chase Utley wuz robbed.

Next is Miguel Tejada 

Tejada is like Rollins with more power, no SBs and a worse glove.  As of this writing his career was essentially over.  He was worse than Jeter in every way except defensively, where he wasn't anything special.

who also holds yearly titles in RBIs 

He did that once, in 2004.

and the 2002 AL MVP award. 

Another sham MVP, given to the much less deserving candidate because Oakland made the playoffs and Texas didn't and A-FRAUD is a cheater anyways.  Also, that was the year that Barry Zito won 23 games and the Cy with a 2.75 ERA.  Barry Zito used to be awesome!  I had forgotten about that during his long, slow descent into sub-mediocrity in San Francisco.  I am getting old.

Much like Rollins, his best asset is his work at the plate. 

Much like Jeter, who is way better at the plate than either of those clowns.

He can hit for both contact and power. He is a dominant force and is someone I would place ahead of Derek Jeter.

No.

And last but not least is Alex Rodriguez. 

You already brought him up.

The name alone justifies his bid over Derek Jeter. 

What?  I hate Jeter but I think "Derek" is a pretty alright name.  It's better than "Alex" any day.

Not only is Rodriguez a better shortstop but he is arguably the best player in baseball. Although he is currently a 3rd baseman, many of Rodriguez's dominant years was as a shortstop with 2 golden gloves under his belt.

Again, Jeter had four as of this writing.  Just saying.

MLB Statistics

2.) Derek doesn't have the stats to back it up

Finally.  Let's get to some gritty statistical analysis.

If one looks at it from a statistical standpoint, Jeter does not measure up.

He can't hold Omaz Vizquel's jockstrap!

- Offensively, Jeter doesn't hold a single batting title. 

Same number of batting titles won by Rollins, Tejada and Vizquel combined.  A-ROID has one, way back in 1996.

In my heart of hearts, I think that matters. 

From earlier in this article: "Sometimes fans, myself included, have a narrow view of something based on limited exposure."  MIKE SCHMIDT AND EDDIE MATHEWS: WHERE ARE YOUR BATTING TITLES?  SHAME ON YOU.  LEAVE COOPERSTOWN IMMEDIATELY.  BABE RUTH AND WILLIE MAYS, YOU GET OFF WITH A WARNING SINCE YOU ONLY WON ONE EACH.

For instance, he doesn't possess a single season MVP title. 

And this brings me so much glee.  But it means absolutely fuck-all.  EDDIE MATHEWS, WITH 96 CAREER RWAR, YOU AGAIN.  YOU WORTHLESS SHITFUCK.  MEL OTT, YOU TOO!

Although many look at him as a power hitter, 

No.  Maybe during the 1910s they would have.

at least from a shortstop standpoint, 

Not even then, no.

he has never hit over 25 homeruns in one season (only 3 seasons with over 20 homeruns). Also, he only has one season with 100 RBIs or more.

Those bastards at the bottom of the Yankee lineup are to blame for this.  He should have made Joe Torre bat him 4th.  That would have changed everything.

- On the defensive side of things, Jeter is mediocre at best. Sure he has made some spectacular plays that we all have etched in our minds, but he's really inconsistent. He's never really had a wide range, so on average, he's not going to stop anything past routine grounders. Plus, even when Jeter does manage to get to the ball, he commits a lot of erros. In total, Jeter has 213 errors in 15 years (an average of 14.2 errors per year.). To put that in perspective, Omar Visquel (as mentioned above, 11-time gold glove winner) has a total of 183 errors in 21 years (an average of 8.7 errors per year.)

No argument.  My pro-Jeter stance has limits.

Or even better, let’s take the average shortstop, someone like Adam Everett. 

Adam Everett was an insanely good defensive shortstop.  He was nuts.  He had to be, to get to play in almost 900 career games with an OPS+ of 66.

He’s solid and has been a starter for the Detroit Tigers for 9 years. He is your everyday player, but by no means a household name and hardly a Hall of Fame candidate. He has committed 84 errors in his career, averaging 12 errors per season.

And the argument just ends right there.  Jeter averages 2.2 more errors per year than Adam Everett.  Hall of Fame: ACCESS DENIED.

New York Yankees

3) Derek is a Yankee!

Is he ever!  I like the exclamation mark, like this is a feature in Us Weekly or something.

That’s right folks, whether anyone wants to admit it, Jeter gets special treatment because he is a New York Yankee. If Jeter began his career for any other team, nobody would pay him much attention.

Yeah, with his 2750 hits, 225 HRs and 300 SBs while playing a premium defensive position (poorly, but stil), I agree.  If he were a Royal or a Padre, he'd have been forgotten about.

Derek would be the equivalent of a Yunel Escobar, the Atlanta Braves current shortstop (meaning good but definitely not Hall of Fame material.). 

Through 2009, Escobar was a career .301/.375/.429 hitter.  Pretty good.  But not nearly as good as my boy JEETS.

The Yankees are a major enterprise. They are, by far, the most recognizable American sports franchise. Since Derek is their proclaimed captain, he receives more attention that may not have been warranted.

Yup.  And he still would have been a Hall of Famer if he retired in December 2009.

Now, I’m not saying that Derek Jeter isn't a good player. In fact, my opinion of him is far from that. He's really good. He hits in the clutch and helps the Yankees win ball games. He does the right things and says the right things. He is a good role model for children all across the United States and is loved by millions. Of course, I know that none of this matters. I can him praise, but most of you will just glance over this part. But the fact of the matter is, I think he's good and very popular.

That's an A+ paragraph.  My ears are smoking as my mind tries to process how this guy can agree with all of that, and still think Jeter is a non-HOFer who doesn't hold a candle to Miguel Tejada.  It's glorious.  It's one of the best cases of double wrongism I've ever seen.  It's like a Bears fan writing an article about how overrated and mediocre Aaron Rodgers is, while also expressing the opinion that Rodgers is absolutely hilarious in those insurance commercials.

However, the Hall of Fame isn’t about popularity or at least it shouldn't be. The Hall of Fame is not about clutch hitters during the month of November. And it isn’t about average shortstops that commit 13-15 errors during their golden glove season.

That is correct.  The Hall of Fame is about the collective waste of skin that is the BBWAA, and their quest to make sure everyone knows how righteous and good the BBWAA is.

The Hall of Fame is about the best of the best. Who cares if he gets 3,000 hits over an extended period of time? So? Good for him. 

And fuck Hank Aaron and the 23 seasons it took him to hit all those home runs.  So?  Good for him.

It's a great achievement, but I don't think it's an automatic bid to the Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame should be about being a dominant player at your position during an extended period of time. 

Like Omar Vizquel.

To me, batting titles should take precedence over longevity.

EAT SHIT AND DIE, EDDIE COLLINS.

Also, the number of world series rings you have on your fingers shouldn't matter. Winning the World Series is a team effort. Did Derek Jeter help Yankees win those championships? Sure he did. But he wasn't the sole reason why the Yankees won. This isn't basketball. The Yankees won because they had a great team, every single time.

This whole article should just be this paragraph cut and pasted over and over.

Again, the Hall of Fame is about being the best over the course of many seasons (not just postseason and 15 years of racking up singles). In my humble opinion, Derek Jeter simply doesn’t demonstrate these qualities.

I am ashamed for having picked on this.  I hope whoever wrote it never finds this blog.

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.

Simmons tries to pretend like he never had a silver spoon in his mouth; some asshole dives into the deepest part of the deep end re: steroids

Whew, writing that title was a lot of work.  Not sure how much energy I've got left for the post.  Tonight I found two short articles worth bitching about, so I'll write about both.  You're welcome.  But wait!  Bonus item (thanks to tips in the comments to the last post), before I get to the Simmons article:

is this the greatest sporting event of 2013 (so far)? They just went end to end for 34 OT minutes. This is amazing.
— Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) June 6, 2013

In fact, no!  No it is not.  It did involve DA FACKIN' BROONS though, so Bill needed to check in with his Tweeps to see if everyone else was as impressed as he was.  He probably has a yearly Google calendar alert that pops up on June 1 that says something like "Check to see if Bruins are still in playoffs; if yes, follow them, if not, Tweet about disappointing recent lack of success and strain it puts on fanbase."   Now for the article.  Don't worry, it's not recent; Grantland, realizing that there is an insatiable demand for Simmons articles from fuckwits nationwide, but having to cope with the reality that he only writes about one per month, has decided to start posting old articles.  This one comes from the summer of 2005, just as he was completing his transition from "Bad writer who is still sometimes a little entertaining and occasionally makes you feel sorry for Boston fans" to "Bad writer who is also an insufferable piece of shit."

Outside the Boston Garden before Game 7 of the '84 NBA Finals, scalpers were getting upwards of $2,000 per ticket. Since we were fortunate enough to own midcourt seats, I remember my father perking up as we heard the numbers being tossed around on Causeway Street. Four grand for our seats? He could barely afford season tickets as it was. 

Yeah fucking right.  Get the fuck out of here.  You went to some fancy fuck New England prep school before attending Holy Cross.  I'm real sure your dad was combing the couch cushions to find the loose change needed for those GAHHHHHDEN seats.  That obviously fabricated last line speaks to my contention above: this is a transparent case of Simmons saying "This anecdote about the incredible cost of scalped game 7 tickets is interesting and needs to be in the column... but I'd better not make too much of a show out of the fact that my dad had expensive season tickets!  How can I accomplish that?  I guess I could always just lie.  Done and done."

Did he ever really consider it? Of course not. 

We were huge Celtics fans and didn't need the money!  Why would we have?

As basketball fans, we knew Game 7 of an NBA Finals was the ultimate experience.

Yep, he was a shitty writer back then too.

You can't possibly imagine the level of intensity, the overpowering electricity in the building, how it keeps going higher and higher.

Unless you've sat at midcourt for a game 7, that is!  In that case, you'll be able to imagine it perfectly, because like me, your dad had season tickets.

Rarely are these games well played – there's too much pressure, too much energy.

I like the unintentional foreshadowing of game 7 of the 2010 finals here. 6 FOR 24 LOLOLO LOLOLL OLO LOLOLL

I kept thinking about that game while the Spurs outlasted the Pistons on Thursday night. You never beat someone in a Game 7 to win the title. You outlast them. You persevere. You survive.

Other things you do: outscore them, and in doing so, beat them.

We'll remember them as one of the weaker championship teams in recent memory, 

He was obsessed with how the present will look in the future back then, too.  Also: eight years down the road, and I don't think that statement is true.  That Pistons team was the defending champs, and they were tough.  The Spurs quasi bookended that 2005 title with much more easily won titles in 2003 and 2007.  I wouldn't sell that 2005 team short at all.  The 2006 Heat?  That's one of the weaker championship teams in recent memory.  

a team that could be pushed around at times, a team whose quality players disappeared for entire games. They needed a miraculous effort from Big Shot Brob in Game 5 just to avoid an ignominious 3-4-5 sweep in Detroit. They couldn't close out the resilient Pistons in Game 6, which any of the better NBA champions in history would have done. Yet none of that stuff will matter 50 years from now. As Joe Theismann would say, championship teams win championships.

The fact that he quoted that as legitimate analysis rather than ridiculous bullshit to be laughed at tells you everything you need to know.

Lost in the shuffle were the defending champs, 

More shitty writing.  They were not lost in the shuffle.  They were one of the two teams on the court.  They won three of the seven games in the series.

who defended their title with the requisite amount of honor and integrity. 

Just like the 2008-2009 Celtics, when they outlasted a mediocre Bulls team and advanced to the second round!  What a fantastic title defense!

They carried championship belts like boxers, shouted "on and on and on" before games, always thrived with their backs to the wall. 

They were really good.  But America needs to know: were they as good as the Patriots?

Some kept comparing them to the Patriots, 

No one did that.

and their impeccable record in must-win games and closeouts put them in the general ballpark. But the Pats won 34 of their last 38 games and haven't lost at home since December 2002. The Pistons never dominated over a prolonged stretch like that;

Pick your jaw up off the floor--I know it's shocking, but Bill reached the conclusion that [team that doesn't play football] is not as FACKIN' DAWMINATING as the GREATRIOTS.  Fun fact: that Pistons/Spurs finals feels like a long time ago, but the Patriots have not won a Super Bowl since.  Warms my heart.

Enough of that. Moving on, some jabroni from ESPN named Steve Wulf has written the hand-wringiest steroid piece you will ever see.  For the most part I will present it without commentary, because for the most part it is absurd and embarrassing on its face without the need for explanation.

This is important. You must care. You need to stop enabling the cheaters the way we used to. You have to root, root, root just as hard for the game itself as you do for the players.

Players have been cheating in one way or another for 125 years.  Somehow, some way, the game seems to be doing fine.

Yell, don't yawn. A new generation of players is playing us for suckers, just as Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro and Roger Clemens did. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, A-Rod, shame on me. Whether it be on the blogosphere, or in Twitterville, 

Use of "Twitterville" is a good way to out yourself as old, out of touch, unfunny, and probably not worth listening to when it comes to sports analysis.

or over sports radio, the vox populi seems to want the latest revelations to go away. Funny that some of the same people who criticized Major League Baseball 10 years ago for not doing anything about the steroid epidemic are now blasting the commissioner for trying to prevent a relapse. 

Who is saying that?

The illegal use of PEDs strikes at the belief in the game. If you can't trust a player's numbers, you can't really trust the score.

The next person to quantify the effect steroids has on a player's numbers, and furthermore, what the overall effect is when both pitchers and hitters are juicing, will be the first.  I'm not saying it doesn't exist, I'm saying it's not worth shitting ourselves over.  And in any case, that's a dumb leap of logic--I have no trouble "trusting the score" even if guys like Braun and Rodriguez are juicing.  Every team probably has guys who are juicing. They're all probably playing a little better than they would if they weren't juicing.  That means that even if one did want to avoid trusting the numbers, they should still be OK with trusting the score.  The baseball universe has yet to collapse in on itself as a result of any of this.

Does anybody have the nerve to ask this: Should the Yankees even count the past two of their 27 championships, the ones they won with Clemens (2000) and Alex Rodriguez (2009)?

I'm sure the 2000 Mets and 2009 Phillies were squeaky clean.  That's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard.

Taking steroids or HGH or any other illegal substance is not a victimless crime. Even if the players don't care about the side effects of their elixirs, baseball does have a responsibility to the young athletes who would emulate those regimens.

Cue up Helen Lovejoy.  Holy shitballs.  While "preventing kids from taking steroids" is a perfectly reasonable thing for society to want, trying to connect it to MLB in this way is embarrassing.  The answers to steroid problems among high schoolers are increased awareness of the dangers of steroids, increased parental involvement in the lives of high schoolers, and increased efforts to shut down steroid suppliers on the law enforcement end.  Not among those answers: wagging one's finger at MLB.

The financial investment we put into being fans is nothing compared to the emotional investment. Remember that wonderful moment when Mark McGwire passed Roger Maris, hugged his own son and then met with the Maris family? Feels kind of cheesy now, doesn't it?

It was always cheesy.  Watching McGwire hit the ball all over the place was cool because few guys could do it like he did it.  It was not cool because he hugged his son at home plate.  If you watch sports and glean more than a small sliver of your enjoyment of them from the emotional storybook moments like McGwire meeting Maris's family, you're wasting your time.  Just watch something else.  And anyone who thought McGwire got to 70 without any extra supplements was miles out of the loop.

It's just plain wrong. Yeah, Gaylord Perry threw a spitball, and Ty Cobb sharpened his spikes, and King Kelly used to take a shortcut from first to third. But the use of clearly prohibited banned substances is cheating of a much more profound nature.

And why is that?  Go ahead, I'll hang up and wait for your answer.

The decision encompasses at least five of the Seven Deadly Sins: pride, envy, greed, gluttony, sloth. (Lust and wrath may be in there, too.)

Ah yes, the Bible.  That's why steroids are evil.  Thank you and please step down from the pulpit.

What this world needs is more love letters from sportswriters to Derek Jeter

How many more years will sportswriters sit down at their keyboards, or whatever awesome brain-connected device replaces the keyboard 20 years from now, and decide that the world really desperately needs to read more drivel like this?  Don't get me wrong, I know it'll go on until he dies, so at least another 40ish years, but will it stop at some point after that?  I guess Bob Costas still blabs He Was More Important Than The Game Itself garbage about Mantle to this day, so the answer is probably no.  Christ.  It's excruciating to think about.

THE MAGIC OF baseball will always live in the storytelling --

And this is why a lot of people hate baseball.  For all the shit I shovel on the NFL for being a sport for meatheads, the assface baseball fan equivalent to the NFL fan meathead is the person who thinks the magic of baseball is in the storytelling.  It most certainly does not, not anymore than the magic of any sports is in the storytelling.  The magic of baseball is in the accessibility, the quirkiness, the way it starts with spring and dies with fall every year, and a hundred other things that are not related to constructing obnoxious and often factually incorrect narratives around dreamy-eyed True Yankees.

the grandeur of Ruth, the Midwestern identification with Musial, the unbreakable Robinson and the complex defiance and moral ambiguity of Bonds.

The magic of all those guys were that they were phenomenal players.  Reading about them (and, for example, the fact that Bonds and Ruth dominated the game in very similar ways 70ish years apart) is awesome, but it's not awesome "storytelling."  It's awesome because they were awesome at baseball.

It's what gives life to the statistics.

I'm sure you can see where this is headed.

Unfortunately, in the age of Moneyball and fantasy leagues,

And NERDS who are NERDY STAT NERDS

the numbers have been detached from, and become more important than, the players.

This is about as phenomenal a straw man as you could hope to construct to try to tear down STAT NERDS.  Hey, I'll bet you STAT NERDS think NUMBERS are more important than BASEBALL PLAYERS, don't you?  You'd get rid of the players entirely if you could!  Don't deny it!

All but one.

You guessed it... Frank Stallone.

The Yankees' Derek Jeter has defied the impact of the two most influential elements of his time: the institutional shift toward quantitative analysis and the cynical lust for home runs, fueled by performance-enhancing drugs.

This is pure horseshit.  I'm sure you were thinking the same thing as you were reading it so I'll spare you the paragraph-long response.  Needless to say, there is nothing about a guy with a .382 career OBP and 94 oWAR that "defies" the shift towards quantitative analysis.  If you want to out yourself as a shithead, be sure to say things like YOU STAT NERDS PROBABLY DON'T EVEN THINK DEREK JETER IS GOOD.  Somewhere along the line, shitheads like Bryant have tried to drastically change the message promoted by people who say things like "Jeter is a bad defensive shortstop" and "Jeter is a first ballot HOF guy, but I'm tired of reading love letters to him from people like Howard Bryant" to JETER SUX.  It's embarrassing.  Also, sorry Howard, but it's not 1998 anymore.  No one is "lusting" for home runs.

For now, he's stuck at 3,304 hits, sidelined until after the All-Star break with an ankle injury. But with Jeter, the visual has always been better than the numerical --

Those steely, calm, steel eyes.  They look right through you.  And when Derek says "Sorry guys, no more questions, I've got to shower and go home" the eyes are saying something much naughtier than that.

and there's never been a better time to appreciate that than in his absence,

Or every March through October of every year from 1996 through 2012, which apparently were also great times to appreciate him, according to numerous baseball writers across the country.

which only underscores his longevity.

It certainly underscores that he's old as shit and about to retire.  Not sure if it underscores how long he's been playing.

For years, most stats guys never liked him as much as his All-Star rivals at shortstop: Alex Rodriguez,

They both became regulars in 1996.  Between then and 2004, when A-FRAUD joined the Yankees, there was exactly one season when Jeter was better (1999).  The other eight seasons, PAY-ROD was somewhere between "somewhat better" and "insanely better" than Steely McGiftBasket.  Jeter is one of the 20 best players of the past 20 years.  Rodriguez is one of the 20 best players of all time.

Nomar Garciaparra

He became a regular in 1997.  Between then and 2003, when he finished his run as an impact player thanks to his groin/hamstring exploding like a firework in 2004, Jeter was better in 1999 and 2001 (because NOMAH got hurt and played in only 21 games).

and Miguel Tejada.

Tejada was definitely not as good as Jeter, although I don't remember too many "stat guys" insisting on that, especially considering Tejada's weakness relative to these other three was always OBP.

Jeter, now 38, has outlasted them all at the position

Lol.  Yes, Jeter did a fantastic job of outlasting Rodriguez at the position, mostly by being the world's greatest teammate and forcing the defensively superior Rodriguez to switch positions in order to accommodate Jeter's ego.

and created a more compelling legacy. (Rodriguez and Tejada will always be drug-tainted,

Fortunately, non-idiots will still be able to appreciate how good they were anyways.  Also, $1,000 to the Red Cross if Jeter tests positive before the end of the season.

and Jeter likely will finish with twice as many hits as Garciaparra's 1,747.)

Take that, guy whose career was ended by crippling and unpredictable injuries!

Jeter most clearly defined his essence on separate occasions in the 2001 ALDS against the A's. Moment One was, of course, [LB edit: THE FLIP PLAY OMG NEED TO GO CHANGE MY PANTS]. But while the scorebook registers Jeter's play as simply an out -- albeit one that was 9-to-6-to-2 -- it demoralized the A's.

This is the kind of stuff we're going to be reading from our rocking chairs at the old folks home in 2070, and the person writing it is going to think they're shining light into darkness.

The second defining moment came two nights later, with the A's spent, wondering as the noise cascaded on them just how they were here playing a deciding Game 5 at Yankee Stadium, how they had let the series slip away. Terrence Long hit a foul ball along the third base line that Jeter chased and caught, spilling into the stands. It was, again, just another out, F6, but on the field it was a referendum of championship toughness.

A ball a faster guy might have gotten to without having to sell out and dive into the stands.  But hey, GRIT TOUGH STEELY EYES CLUTCH.  Hard to argue with that.

The Yankees had it. The A's didn't.

The ability to win three out of five games in that particular series: the Yankees had it.

That intangibles notion is murky, of course, and complicated.

Could have ended the article right there.

Jeter played in an era when everyone was suspected of PED use. For those choosing to believe the shortstop that he was, is and always has been a clean ballplayer, the monument to his fidelity and greatness lies in his old-school bona fides.

That's awesome.  "Those who assume he never used credit it to something ill-defined, the existence of which can't be proven or disproven."  And let's also point out that as of June 2011, Jeter was coming off by far his worst offensive season and was hitting .257/.321/.329 with zero home runs in the not-exactly-young season. Then he rebounded nicely to finish 2011 and had a .316/.362/.429 season with fifteen home runs in 2012.  Let's just put that out there.  Something clicked for him.  Did a nagging injury heal?  Did he change his approach?  You know what--it could have been anything.

Jeter, along with possibly Ken Griffey Jr., is the only player in the modern game whose iconic moments were generated by all five tools -- not just by standing in the batter's box and hitting another home run in a game that encouraged nothing but.

Again, if you want to out yourself as a shithead, make sure you tell everyone that Jeter is one of only two players in the last 25ish years to generate "iconic moments" with all five tools.  That will make it very clear to everyone reading your writing that you're a fucking shithead.  It will also require you to ignore the existence of Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Carlos Beltran, and about 200 other position players to play during that time.

Like Jackie Robinson, Jeter is pure baseball.

True Yankee.  Steely Eyes.  Pure Baseball.  Gift Basket.

He will be remembered for his baserunning (the clever beating of the shift by swiping third base that he made routine).

How many players don't capitalize on that?  More importantly, how many teams are like "screw it, ignore than runner on second, we're putting the full shift on?"  My guess is this happened once with Jeter in like 1997 and Bryant now wants to credit him with a) making it routine and b) inventing cars, airplanes, and computers.

He will be equally celebrated for his fielding and throwing.

He will be remembered for being an adequate to good shortstop through his 20s, and then receiving a bunch of Gold Gloves he didn't deserve during his 30s.  Not sure "celebrated" is the right term.

(Even though he doesn't rank anywhere near the top 1,000 in career defensive WAR, you can't deny the Flip, the nailing of Arizona's Danny Bautista at third in the 2001 World Series or the flying leap into the crowd against the Red Sox in the summer of '04.)

That's right.  Those three plays cannot be denied.  They really happened, they were not optical illusions that fooled everyone who saw them.  I will grant that.  He's still been a shitty defensive shortstop for a decade and running.

And his hitting consistency is close to unmatched. (His injury likely will make his quest for 4,000 hits unsuccessful, but he is in range to catch Henry Aaron at 3,771 for third all time.)

I'm not trying to overhate here, but that's not going to happen.

Not that he couldn't power the ball out of the ballpark too -- there was the first-pitch leadoff home run in Game 4 of the 2000 Series when the Mets had won the night before,

"Not that he couldn't power the ball out of the ballpark too -- remember, he hit a home run once."  Take a step back and think about this article.  What the fuck are you getting out of this?  What the fuck could Derek Jeter's closest admirers (other than Howard Bryant and his family) get out this?  Much of this can be summarized as "Jeter was great."  Holy dog balls, this is awful.  Almost over though.

and the two-out, full-count walk-off home run the following year in Game 4 against Arizona.

Why did the Yankees lose that series?  I blame A-Rod, even though he was a Ranger at the time.

As if that wasn't enough, there's also the imprint he's had on the Yankees, the first homegrown star to lead the franchise to the World Series since Mickey Mantle. (1977-78 belonged to Reggie, not Munson.) 

As Chris W put it, what a fun and worthwhile use of our time--let's argue whether Munson really "led" the Yankees to that title.  After that we can go back to debating the existence of Jeter's "old school bona fides."

He became the signature player for the game's signature team when it returned to power, and in an era of drugs and cynicism and ruined reputations, he never embarrassed the sport, his team or,

This describes 99% of all MLB players.  One of the ones it does not describe is Barry Bonds, who was still fucking awesome, way more awesome than Derek Jeter.  Neener neener neener.

most important, his family name.

Most importantly, he never embarrassed the sacred Jeter family name?  What?  Why are we giving him credit for this?  "Most importantly, he never pushed anyone off of the Statue of Liberty.  For this, he deserves a parade."

There is no metric for that. Just a magical story.

It really isn't.  This was a colossal waste of time and I apologize to you for having made you read it.

Derek Jeter Derek Jeter Derek Jeter DEREK JETER JETERJETERJETERJETER!!!!!!

He's been in the news lately I guess. The best part about it (by which I mean the only non-stupid part about it) is that everyone has something to say about him, and they're all wrong. Join me for a brief tour of all opinions unsupportable, inane, or both.

Zilcharoo blogger 'Duk from Blig League Stew has some thoughts about whether or not Jeter should play in the All Star Game.

But considering Jeter has been healthy enough to play each game since returning from his rehab stint, I don't think it's asking too much of Jeter to put in some face time, both for the good of the sport and to thank his fans.

Yeah, I know, right? I mean, he's been healthy for five whole games. What a vajayjay. Don't worry about your rehab, dude. Truck yourself off to Arizona and smile for the cameras. Not that it isn't a little weak for him to bail on the game- but seriously, the fact the he's been healthy for about a week is a good reason to fly six hours for an exhibition game? Better arguments could have been made, people. BETTER ARGUMENTS. Chris forwarded me that article, and my snarky response was "Nah, if he skips the game, it'll be a move of pure class." Little did I know how right I unintentionally was (according to some).

"Derek Jeter is as great an ambassador for this game as we've seen in a long time," Weiner said.

That's players' union chief Michael Weiner. Hehehehe. Weiner.

"I don't think anybody can really question Derek's commitment to the game or, frankly, to being an All-Star."

Well the thing is, you can. He's not going to the ASG. Therefore he's not really committed to it. I don't blame him for his decision. I don't think it was wrong. But it shows that he's not committed to it. Also, how has he been "as great an ambassador" as anyone has seen in a long time? Is he super involved in charity work? If he is, he's doing it under the radar. The Google indicates that he's no more involved than the average star (and a lot less involved than many). By being a super popular player on a super popular team? If that's the case, then why doesn't anyone call Fish Fillet-Rod a great ambassador? Maybe it's because Jeter bangs lots of hot, famous women. Nope, that doesn't seem like enough. Well he's never been arrested in the aftermath of a bar brawl. Gotta hand him that.

Long story short, he's just your average run-of-the-mill Hall of Famer (and I don't say that as a backhanded compliment). He's played somewhere from good to amazing for about fifteen years. He's got rings. He's super popular. But he hasn't done anything more than the other 50 or so superduperstars with whom his career has overlapped. Why does he get this praise? Why? Whatever the reason is, I'm sure it has something to do with classy classiness, something I've heard Jeter has in spades even though no one can explain what that means or why he gets the label with any level of clarity.

Well in any case I'm sure baseball commissioner Bud "face like a catcher's mitt" Selig can bring some sanity to this fracas.

"There isn't a player I'm more proud of in the last 15 years than Derek Jeter," Selig said. "He has played the game the way it should be played, and he's been a better human being off the field."

What the fuck is Bud alluding to? Is Jeter secretly pulling off Clemente-esque feats of amazing generosity and somehow not being recognized for them? He's obviously a great player. IN WHAT DISCERNABLE WAY IS HE A GREAT HUMAN BEING, OR ANY GREATER A HUMAN BEING THAN ROY HALLADAY OR ALBERT PUJOLS OR DAVID ORTIZ?????? It's insane. He is immediately given full credit for being the second coming of Gandhi regardless of what he does. At this point he could go all OJ and murder his wife and a waiter in cold blood, and people would be like "See, that's just pure class right there. Pure class. Those two had it coming." It fucking boggles my mind. I can't get past it.

Maybe it is all the famous/hot women he's banged. And if FireJay was Barstool Sports, this is where we'd have links to Maxim photoshoots of all of them.

Open discussion in the comments

Here's your topic. Derek Jeter: is he classy? Sources say: definitely. But as there is no statistic for classiness, my basement-dwelling brain that has never played a game of baseball in my life can't figure out how to measure classiness. I'm also going to go out on a limb (this time I'm actually serious) and say that class is the kind of thing you can only discern by knowing someone pretty well. Like, you have to know them better than 99.9% of the people who claim Jeter is classy know him. But I dunno, maybe I'm crazy. Talk me off the ledge here.

But actually I should rephrase that question. Derek Jeter: classiest Yankee of all time, or classiest HUMAN of all time?

WHAT????!?!?

You're shitting me. How did they overcome his absence? Shortstops with no range who can rake to the tune of .260/.324/.324 don't just grow on trees, you know. He's actually accumulated -0.1 Baseball-reference WAR so far this year. The Yankees should have been expected to get ever so slightly better simply by having him get hurt.

So of course he's going to start the All-Star game, why wouldn't he? And of course there are people out there (who aren't from Yonkers or Jersey) more than willing to justify his All-Star selection, why wouldn't they? YOU KNOW WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT IT'S THE ALL *STAR* GAME- ONLY STARS SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO PLAY. AND ONLY GUYS WHO HAVE PLAYED IN THE ALL STAR GAME BEFORE COUNT AS STARS, WHICH CLOSES THE LOOP AND MAKES THIS LINE OF LOGIC FLAWLESS:

AL shortstop for life: Despite a subpar season, Trenton Thunder shortstop Derek Jeter was voted into his sixth straight Midsummer Classic and 11th overall. Just as you're sure to read plenty of profiles of Vogelsong's time in Japan, you're also going to hear plenty of bellyaching about Jeter's spot on the team with a 77 OPS+. Whatever. It's always been my position that the All-Star game should feature "stars" and there isn't a bigger one in baseball right now than Derek Jeter. With all apologies to Asdrubal Cabrera -- who could start the game anyway if Jeter isn't up to the task — no one's tuning into the game to watch Asdrubal Cabrera.

There "isn't a bigger (star) in baseball right now than Derek Jeter"? Fuck you, Yahoo Sports blogger. Regardless of the validity of this line of logic, you can't say that. I'm not having it. Even if you make "how many fans know who he is" your #1 qualification for stardom, Jeter's almost certainly not even the biggest star on his own team. He's probably in the top 10 in the league, but still. C'mon.

Now, Chris W and I discussed this today and we agree that the ASG is for the fans (insert snarky comment about how stupid it is for the game to determine WS home field advantage here), so if they want to see Jeter, they should vote to see Jeter. Of course, Chris then went on to make a number of important points that supersede that point:

1) Fans don't really know what's best for them or for the game. Which is better for both: letting the fans restrict themselves to a narrow and aging base of superstars who are about to be put out to pasture, or forcing the fans to acknowledge that younger better players like Asdrubal Cabrera are budding stars who are really actually good at baseball in the year 2011 and will be for the next 10 years? But don't bother telling any of that to Selig and his merry band of asshole owners, because

2) MLB is run by a bunch of fucking morons who let fans determine who gets coverage. The attention balance in MLB as compared to the NFL blows my mind. I shake my head in sadness at the fact that Colts vs. Jaguars or Chiefs vs. Chargers can get great ratings on Monday Night Football (provided those teams are playing well of course), but if a baseball game involves any team other than the Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies, or Cubs, 90% of sports fans don't give a shit. This is partially on media giants like ESPN and FOX, but more significantly it's on the league itself, which rams the GREATEST RIVALRY IN THE HISTORY OF SPORTS EVER (you know which teams I'm referring to) down our throats every year at the expense of developing any number of other available and compelling storylines. Fuck you, MLB. Fuck you with an oar, Bud Selig. You suck ass. And of course, on both the fan and ownership sides, the problem is accurately generalized by Chris when he points out that

3) The problem with sports (and really all of entertainment... but I'll skip ranting on a broader subject because this isn't Gruntland) today is that people won't let their perceived enjoyment now be lowered even if that means they'll be able to enjoy things more tomorrow.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. And that pretty much sums up how talking about this with Chris/writing this post made me feel. Good luck to you in the ASG, Jeter. I hope you somehow ground into twenty double plays and get a standing ovation after each of them.

An article about baseball written by someone who obviously knows nothing about baseball

Back in the day, way back when that other FJM blog (the one that copied our name and stole our idea) was still active, they occasionally wrote posts picking on small-time sportswriters. Really small-time. Like, they'd pick on the guy who writes the sports section, entertainment section, and police blotter for the North Platte Plains Journal. I always thought that was kind of pointless; sure, those writers had really stupid things to say about sports, but it's not like anyone ever read their garbage. It kind of had the feel of a literary critic ripping apart entries from a middle school short story contest.

But you know what? Fuck that. If they can steal our ideas, we can steal theirs. Last week I stumbled into this piece by some dude from the Enid (Oklahoma) News and Eagle. And that dude, Dave Ruthenberg, has some really great and valid points to make about interleague play. So lean back in your porch swing, take a sip of homemade iced tea, and enjoy some small town sportswriting from a guy who really isn't too sure about this whole Facebook Twitter thing.

In the normal scheme of things, Tuesday’s 5-2 victory by the Florida Marlins over the Los Angeles Angels would garner nary a notice other than a mention on that ubiquitous lower-screen ESPN crawl on your television.

Well your first problem is that you're watching ESPN and expecting any kind of baseball coverage at all. TONIGHT ON SPORTSCENTER- JUST WAIT UNTIL YOU HEAR WHAT CAM NEWTON HAD TO SAY ABOUT BEING COMPARED TO MIKE VICK IN A TWEET FROM LEBRON.

Certainly, the fact the Marlins and Angels were playing an interleague game bore little or no interest to most fans.

Whereas most Marlins games get coverage like the first moon landing.

Interleague play, once an intriguing an idea before the explosion of cable and satellite TV brought nearly every team from the American League and National League into our homes, has run its tired course.

Baseball has been shown on national TV since 1965. I understand that MLB Extra Innings is a little different than a single game being broadcast nationally once a week on ABC, but it's not like the only option for following games when interleague was conceptualized was to sit around your family's vacuum tube radio and hope you could pick up the Senators/Redstockings game.

Interleague play was a new idea in 1997,

All ideas are new ideas when people first have them. That is the essence of an idea.

but has quickly grown old and needs to put out to pasture. Be honest, does anybody care that the Detroit Tigers are playing the Colorado Rockies or that the Washington Nationals are playing the Seattle Mariners?

Does anyone care when the Tigers play the Mariners and the Rockies play the Nationals? Pointing out that unpopular teams play interleague games is not a reason to can it. Although I have to agree with the author's implied premise: baseball certainly would be more interesting if the AL consisted of only the Red Sox and Yankees and the NL consisted of only the Dodgers and Phillies. Geez, that would be so exciting that it might even be worth reconsidering this whole “let's shelve interleague” thing. Yankees-Phillies! Can you imagine?

Sure, there were a couple of intriguing matchups such as St. Louis and Kansas City

Yeah, a good 40% of Missouri was riveted to that one. THAT'S the one you pick?

or the Cubs versus the Mets.

Not to mention that White Sox/Rangers interleague series from a few weeks back!

But even those games have lost their luster in the middle of a baseball season that is sorely lacking intrigue or excitement.

You know what would help baseball regain its status as America's favorite sport? If it had more football in it.

So why would a game involving the Florida Marlins, who entered Tuesday with an 11-game losing streak, matter to anyone? Jack McKeon.

Hey, one of the league's least-followed teams hired an 80 year old dude to manage. NOW we'll see some intrigue and excitement.

/waits for Jack McKeon to say something racist or pee himself during a press conference

While baseball needs to retire interleague play, it is a little ironic

I don't want to be a grammar dick, but it's ironical.

that a manager long ago thought to have been put out to pasture, became, at least for now, baseball’s most interesting story.

So ironical. I guess in Dave's world, interleague play = boring, Jack McKeon = interesting. Geez, where does the fact that the Pirates just signed a contract with a new hot dog bun provider for PNC Parkfit on this scale? Can it even fit or do we have to acknowledge that some things are so incredible that they simply can't be categorized?

The 80-year-old McKeon was brought out of retirement to take over as interim manager of the woeful Marlins after Edwin Rodriguez stepped down as their manager. Rodriguez compiled a record of 78-85 since taking over one year ago but things were heading downhill swiftly but when the Marlins named McKeon, most observers snickered.

Editorial standards at the News and Eagle aren't what they used to be.

But really, an 80-year-old manager? McKeon is old-school and offers no apologies.

Unlike Manny Acta, who simply will not stop fucking apologizing for his age. It's really awkward, actually.

“Why should experience get penalized?” McKeon said after he took on the job.

Because as humans get older they tend to get shittier at everything?

“Maybe I’m not hip with the Twitter or Facebook or stuff like that,

Is there a more predictable way for an 80 year old in a young persons' industry to respond to a question about their age? I'm certain that there isn't. Eat your heart out, Ted Stevens. WELL I TELL YOU WHAT I DON'T KNOW TOO MUCH ABOUT THE INTERNET ROBOT MACHINES BUT I KNOW A LITTLE BIT ABOUT DOUBLE SWITCHES

but outside of that I don’t have any problem disciplining my kids – or these players.”

So McKeon will not be telling Hanley Ramirez to get his lazy fucking ass in gear via tweet or status message. Gotcha.

You have to admire straight-forward talk like that.

No you don't. You have to either 1) shrug it off as a stupid cliché or 2) nod along cautiously because you're also 80 and have no idea what Facebook and Twitter are.

Not being familiar with today’s so-called social media may be an advantage. How many games have been won via Twitter or Facebook?

Exactly 273, but who's counting? Yeah, I have to admit that the other FJM was onto something w/r/t these small time sportswriters. I might have to start checking in with Dave from Enid regularly. This guy rules.

A New Low for "Irony"

To fucktarded members of the sports media, lots of things are ironic. Things that are coincidences are ironic. "Ironically, he played a really great game just one night after playing a really awful game!" Things that are interesting are ironic. "Ironically, this will be the first time he's played against his former team since they traded him to his new team for a bag of magic beans!" But tonight, as I listened to the Yankees/Red Sox game on WCBS radio while driving cross country via rental car (hey, YOU try finding something else to listen to on AM/FM radio in the middle of East Bumfuck County, Pennsylvania), I heard Yankees broadcaster John Sterling take "irony" to a whole new level.

Side note: hey Chris W, isn't the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry so rich and full of history?

Other side note: Sterling's broadcast partner is still Suzyn Waldman. I thought they fired her for crying on the air during a postgame show. OH MY GOODNESS GRACIOUS. OF ALL... OF ALL THE DRAMATIC NON-FIRINGS I'VE EVER SEEN.

Anyways, here's what happened during the game: bottom of the ninth. Yankees down a run. Guys on 1st and 3rd, one out. Batter hits a weak grounder back to the pitcher, whose only play is to first. Now there are guys on 2nd and 3rd with two outs. John, your analysis?

And the irony of the situation is that a single will now win the game.

Wow.

The basic reality/facts of any given situation, as well as any cause/effect relationships you can identify in one, are now ironic. I was hungry this morning, so ironically, I ate breakfast. It was ironic that because Barack Obama won the Democratic primary race in 2008, he became the Democratic nominee for president. Ironically, getting into field goal range when you're down two with 0:01 left on the clock in the 4th quarter gives you a chance to win a game. (A FOOTBALL game on a FOOTBALL field, to be specific.) Thanks John.

Is there anything left that's not "ironic?"

[Note: I'm almost willing to imagine a scenario in which John was trying to indicate that before the productive out, a single would have only tied the game, but after, even though an out is a "bad" play, a single will now win the game. So in that sense the bad play had a good outcome. Which wouldn't really be ironic, in the context of baseball, but would be in the vague neighborhood of irony. Almost. I think it's about a billion times likelier, however, that he was just throwing the word around for the fuck of it. I dunno. If you want to defend him, go for it. I have my theory and I'm sticking to it.]

Ugh, Jeter

So apparently Jeter won the SI "Sportsman of the Year Award. It could be worse. I mean, he did have an excellent year playing baseball. But the worst part of it is the rationales given by SI Group Editor Terry McDonnell. Here are a few of the highlights:

"This verifies my idea that he is on the level of Ruth and Gehrig," McDonell said. "He's the greatest shortstop in the history of the game."

No, the greatest shortstop in the history of the game currently plays third base for the Yankees.

Jeter is not on the level of Ruth and Gehrig. He's just not. You can't just SAY that.

"He's so classy," McDonell said. "He brings a dignity and elegance to the game."

Ugh.

"It's about the manner of the striving and the quality of the effort, too," McDonell said. "Off the field he has grown so much as a member of the community."

If this award was really about the manner of the striving and the quality of the effort, they'd have to give it to Eckstein every year.

McDonell was impressed by Jeter's leadership, how he "stepped in and molded a team" this spring with the arrival of three expensive free agents, and Alex Rodriguez's admission to using steroids from 2001-03 and then having hip surgery that kept him out until May.

Jeter molded the team! Why didn't he mold any of the 2002-2008 Yankees into World Series Champs?

I like how A-Rod's hip surgery somehow becomes a reason for Jeter winning an award.

This Post Will Not Win Me Any Friends Among My FJayM Colleagues and Our Loyal Readers

This is poised to be my least popular post in the history of this site (the "I hate the NBA Playoffs" post notwithstanding). Why?

a.) It is an attempt of sorts to dispute the idea that baseball is an exceptionally "unfair" sport in terms of parity, salary, what have you...particularly in the context of this most recent Yankees championship--something I know most of you (especially Larry and Jack) have strong feelings about.

b.) It is a rip of an article by Joe Posnanski, a guy who is my favorite sportswriter living today not named Bill James--and I'm sure a favorite of a number of yours since the readers of this site generally seem like non-idiots.

c.) It's not a particularly new article. Baseball's over right? It's basketball (bleh) and football (Fire Lovie Smith!) season.

Nevertheless. Here goes.

Here’s the thing about the New York Yankees huge payroll: It has been talked about so much that, in reality, it is hardly talked about at all. I know this makes little sense, but what I mean is this:

A. Everyone knows the Yankees spend much more money than any other team to win games.
B. Because everyone knows it, people have been complaining about it for many years.
C. Because people have complained about it for many years, everybody is sick of hearing about it.
D. Because everyone is sick of hearing about it, nobody really listens.
E. Because nobody really listens, people don’t talk about the Yankees spending much more money than any other team to win games.

Yes, this is a weird circle. But in this bizarre world of spin where Alex Rodriguez tries to project himself as an underdog* and Yankees types try to recast George Steinbrenner as sympathetic figure, I think this Yankees money fatigue is very real. As soon as you start talking about it, people turn off. What we’re talking about this again? Or, as indignant Yankees fans, they get angry: “Oh man, you’re not going to talk about the Yankees MONEY thing again, are you?”

Joe begins with--in typically Posnanskian fashion--a very interesting and intellectually fascinating point. The Yankees success is so talked-about it is no longer talked about. Sadly, the article loses steam from here on:

Now, let’s think about this for a moment: You have a sport where the New York Yankees — in large part because they are located in America’s largest city and they have baseball’s richest television contract — can viably spend tens of millions of dollars more than any other team to acquire baseball players. You have one team (and only one team) playing the video game on cheat-mode.

"Only one team"? This is not intellectually honest. Do the Yankees spend preponderately more than the competition? Absolutely. They spent more than 50mm more than the Mets, the 2nd highest payroll in MLB in 2009. However, the Mets spent 150mm in 2009. The Cubs spent 134mm. The Red Sox spent 120mm. The Tigers spent 110mm. Yes, that is proportionately smaller than the Yankees' payroll #'s, but it is likewise proportionately larger than the middle of the pack teams like the Cardinals and Rockies who spend in the 70mm's. Look at it this way--The Yankees spend ~33% more than the Mets. The Mets spend 100% more than the Cardinals and 500% more than the Marlins (the lowest payroll in MLB).

Clearly we have a lot of teams exploiting a salary differential. And "playing the game on cheat mode"? I can understand the general sentiment behind this statement insofar as the Yankees bought up the perceived top 3 free agents this past winter. But the Yankees have been doing this for the past 8 years. The 2008 Yankees had a payroll that was even more disparate in re: the competition than the 2009 Yankees. Whereas the 2009 Yankees ranged from 50-80mm above the rest of the top 5 in payroll, the 2008 Yankees were 70mm beyond the 2nd highest payroll in MLB--the Tigers @ 139mm. They were ~80mm above the 5th place team (White Sox @ 120mm) making their "advantage above the competitive field" EXACTLY THE FUCKING SAME IN 2009 AS IT WAS IN 2008. What does that mean? It means "cheat mode" is a really impotent way to cheat, being that the 2008 Yankees missed the postseason. Or in 2007 when they enjoyed a similar payroll advantage and....made the playoffs as a Wild Card team.

What kind of cheat mode is this? A used Game Genie?

Perhaps I'm putting too fine a point on this, let's continue with Posnanski's article:

his is much starker than people think, by the way. I quickly went back and looked at the numbers before writing my column for SI.com, and I’m going to reprint them here because even as someone who has also grown sick of hearing about the Yankees payroll, I found them to be stunning:

In 2002, the Yankees spent $17 million more in payroll than any other team.

In 2003, the Yankees spent $35 million more in payroll than any other team.

In 2004, the Yankees spent $57 million more in payroll than any other team. I mean, it’s ridiculous from the start but this is pure absurdity. Basically, this is like the Yankees saying: “OK, let’s spend exactly as much as the second-highest payroll in baseball. OK, we’re spending exactly as much. And now … let’s add the Oakland A’s. No, I mean let’s add their whole team, the whole payroll, add it on top and let’s play some ball!”

In 2005, the Yankees spent $85 million more than any other team. Not a misprint. Eight five.

In 2006, the Yankees spent $74 million more than any other team.

In 2007, the Yankees spent $40 million more than any other team — cutbacks, you know.

In 2008, the Yankees spent $72 million more than any other team.

In 2009, the Yankees spent $52 million more than any other team.

Is it just me or does this seem to be counterproductive to the argument that there is a clear and easily defined correlation between payroll and success--postseason or otherwise?

By Joe's own numbers, shouldn't the years when the Yankees had their biggest advantage be 2005, 2006, and 2008, when their payroll advantage was at its most disparate? (85mm,74mm, and 72mm respectively) What were the results in those years? ALDS loss. ALDS loss. Missed playoffs.

Likewise, the years when the Yankees have had the most overall success (2003 with their WS berth and 2009, with their 27th WS title) have been years with a lesser (at least from "THE FREE SPENDING YANKEES standpoint") payroll advantage: 35mm and 52mm respectively.

I can appreciate the concept that the Yankees seem to be a monolithic team in their spending. Hell I see it every year when free agents on the open market are priced out of my favorite team's range of affordability by a Yankees team that drives prices on open-commodities through the roof. But why cite these numbers in this way, given the Yankees lack of success (at least by their own standards) throughout the 00's. And especially given that this year's payroll advantage comes at a reduction from their payroll advantage average from 2004-2008?

Is this a compelling argument in terms of "The Yankees bought themselves a World Series in 2009" rather than "The Yankees smartened up and did a better job assembling a team in 2009 than they have in years past...when they attempted to BUY a World Series team by equating dollar value of total salary with quality of team."

In other words doesn't this argument make the same mistake the Yankees of the 00's made?

Posnanski tries to blur this distinction, arguing that success and unfair dominance in baseball is harder to recognize.

Baseball happens to be a sport where dominance can be obscured. It doesn’t look like dominance. What I mean is this: Baseball, for many reasons, is built in such a way that the best teams win less often than in other sports. A 13-win NFL team wins 81% of the time. A national championship contending football team might lose once or twice — or not at all. A 60-win NBA team wins 75% of the time, and a big time college basketball team will win closer to 90%.

A 100-win baseball team wins 62% of the time … and there was only one 100-win baseball team this year. The New York Yankees. Every baseball team that won even 56% of the time this year made the playoffs. It is a sport of small triumphs, good months, one-run victories. I believe it was Whitey Herzog who said that the key to baseball is not getting swept … the idea being that if you can play well most of the time and steal at least one in a three-game series when you’re not playing well, then you will be in good shape at the end of the year.

An admirable effort but here are two important points

1.) Even if we assume that 55% success rate is dominance, the Yankees have not been the most dominant team in baseball year in and year out. They have had years, like this year, where they have won the most games--by Joe's definition "being the most dominant"--but they have had years where they have not even been the most "dominant" team in their division, much less their league

2.) 55% is not dominant. It may be "best," but it's not dominant. Plain and simple. There are teams who have won a historic amount of games, who have dominated rs/ra measurements, who have owned the postseason. You could argue that the 1975 Reds (Joe's book on them was fucking exceptional) or the 1939 Yankees or the 1908 Cubs were "dominant" despite only winning 70% or so of their games, because in addition to that their runs scored so vastly eclipsed their runs allowed, their batting and pitching statistics were oppressive, etc. etc. but you can't say that a team that won 103 games and had a fairly pedestrian RS/RA for a championship team was "dominant" just because "they play more games in baseball." It just doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

This Yankees team was "dominant enough" just like the teams before them between 2001 and 2008 were "not dominant enough" but this is not a historically dominant team by any fucking measure.

Baseball happens to be a sport where dominance can be obscured. It doesn’t look like dominance. What I mean is this: Baseball, for many reasons, is built in such a way that the best teams win less often than in other sports. A 13-win NFL team wins 81% of the time. A national championship contending football team might lose once or twice — or not at all. A 60-win NBA team wins 75% of the time, and a big time college basketball team will win closer to 90%.

A 100-win baseball team wins 62% of the time … and there was only one 100-win baseball team this year. The New York Yankees. Every baseball team that won even 56% of the time this year made the playoffs. It is a sport of small triumphs, good months, one-run victories. I believe it was Whitey Herzog who said that the key to baseball is not getting swept … the idea being that if you can play well most of the time and steal at least one in a three-game series when you’re not playing well, then you will be in good shape at the end of the year.

So, dominant baseball teams don’t LOOK dominant in the same way they do in football or basketball. It’s like the billionaire CEO who doesn’t wear ties and rides coach on planes. He’s still a billionaire but he doesn’t LOOK like a billionaire. No team goes winless or undefeated in baseball. Few ever go winless or undefeated even over 16-game stretches. No team in baseball loses fewer than 40 games, and no team wins more than 120, and it’s only the rarest of teams that get anywhere close to either of those numbers.

Right, but some teams do win 70% of their games. Some teams have a RS/RA margin greater than 200. Some teams have an acceptable 4th starter.

This is not a compelling argument.

I think of it this way, using a mockabet: I would bet if the Indianapolis Colts played the Cleveland Browns 100 times, and the Colts were motivated, they would probably 95 of them — maybe even more than that. But if the New York Yankees played the Kansas City Royals 100 times, and the Yankees were motivated, I suspect the Royals would still win 25 or 30 times. That’s baseball.

I love Joe, except for this article, but man I hate his neologisms. "Mockabet" is his coined term for a bet that you couldn't possibly ever resolve because it's completely hypothetical and immune to reality's trappings. Here he's saying something completely uncheckable and something I disagree with completely.

There is a kernel of truth to this because the Cleveland Browns will start the same roster against the Colts every week but that some days the Yankees will start Chien Ming Wang against Zach Greinke. However, the generalized point Posnanski's making seems completely illogical. The talent divide between the best teams in football and the worst seem to pretty much any rational fan to be about the same as in baseball. Does anyone really think the Raiders are any more equipped to beat the Colts week in and week out than the Pirates are to beat the Yankees? If so, I apologize I guess.

So you have this sport that tends to equalize teams.

So...the Yankees's spending is unfair because....the sport they play in tends to...equalize teams?

Also, isn't this the exact opposite of the argument for why the NFL is a paragon of parity? I'm confused now*

*I anticipate the commenters who use this moment to point out that "heh heh you are confused". Nevertheless.**

**And yes, I stole this device from Posnanski.

If the New England Patriots were allowed to spend $50 million more on players than any other team, they would go 15-1 or 16-0 every single year.

I don't believe this for a fucking second.

The Patriots' dominance is BECAUSE they have quote/unquote outsmarted a capped system and have found a way to produce effective and dominant players and keep them at a cost that allows their roster to be more well-rounded and schemable than other teams. If you take away the nature of their advantage (i.e. that other teams can't acquire as much talent as they do because these other teams are forced to allocate money to that talent in a way the Patriots have avoided up till now through smart use of draft picks on accruing affordable talent in the late first round and late rounds of the draft), they're not going to become more dominant. It will most likely allow other teams to catch up to them.

Or something like that.

But in baseball, a great and dominant team might only win 95 out of 160, and it doesn’t seem so bad.

So now a 95 win team is dominant?

The second thing is that ,at the end of the year, the best teams are thrown together in a succession of short series that are fun to watch but are not designed to pick the best teams. Quite the opposite: A short series in baseball is designed to shelter weaknesses and expose strengths. Yuni Betancourt can out-hit A-Rod in a five-game series. Livan Hernandez can out-pitch Tim Lincecum in a one-game match-up. Baseball doesn’t hide this — they slam it down your throat. October baseball! Anything’s possible! And so on.

I don't agree with this, but I suspect I'm alone. Let's move on.

So, you create a system where the best team doesn’t always win. In fact, you create a system where the best team often doesn’t win. For years the Yankees didn’t win. They lost to Florida. They lost Anaheim. They blew a 3-0 series lead against Boston. They lost to Anaheim again and Detroit and Cleveland — and how could you say that baseball is unfair? Look, the Yankees can’t win the World Series! See? Sure they spend $50 million more than any other team and $100 million more than most. But they haven’t won the World Series! Doesn’t that make you feel better?

You'll be hard-pressed to explain to me how the 2003 Marlins were inherently a worse team than the 2003 Yankees. I guess there's an argument to be made for the concept that the 2003 Yankees lineup was overpowering enough to overcome the fact that the Marlins's frontline pitching was better than the Yankees' but I don't really buy that.

All this is mighty subjective. The Angels teams that beat the Yankees were better in some ways than the Yankees and worse in some ways against the Yankees. The Tigers team that beat the Yankees were bette in some ways and worse in others.

And the major way these teams were better is pitching. So let's not get on the pity party of "the Yankees lost to a worse team." They lost to teams that did some things better than they did and did some things worse than they did, and they did it in close serieses and they did it because they weren't by any means an unbeatable team.

And this has been the Wizard of Oz slight of hand game that Baseball has been playing for a long time … ignore the man behind the curtain who makes more money off of baseball than anyone else and can buy just about any player he wants. Ignore the absurdity of it all. Just remember: The Yankees haven’t won in a while! Just remember: Anything is possible.

Ah, yes, but not only hadn't the Yankees not won in a while, they hadn't come close to winning in a while. The closest they got was Dave Roberts stealing second. And then their payroll advantage decreased...and...they won it all.

This is not exactly helping the case.

There’s something else that people say: They talk about how money doesn’t guarantee wins. And they point out that other teams (the Mets, the Cubs, the Astros, etc.) spend a lot of money and don’t win. I think this actually makes for an interesting argument if you want to talk about the inequities of baseball … big markets, small markets, all that.

But the Yankees are a whole different argument. They are their own argument. The Yankees are not a big market team. They DWARF big market teams. They are quantitatively different from every other team in baseball and every other team in American sports. They don’t just spend more money than every other team. They spend A LOT more money than every other team. The Boston Red Sox spend $50 million more than the Kansas City Royals? Who cares? The Yankees spend $80 million more than the Boston Red Sox.

The Yankees have a pat hand.

Ah, let's just dismiss a reasonable objection out of hand. Why? Because IT'S JUST DIFFERENT. Never mind that the Cubs had a 100% payroll advantage over the team that beat them handily in the Central last year. IT'S JUST DIFFERENT. Never mind that another team that spends heavily, but smartly, has been consistently a better team in the latter half of this decade than the Yankees. BECAUSE IT'S JUST DIFFERENT. The Yankees spend the most. AND IT'S JUST DIFFERENT. They're the most successful too because of it. Never mind that they haven't really been all that successful. That's just because success isn't easy to see in baseball. Just trust me when I say they've been successful in relation to their expectations.

Sigh. I love you Joe, but this was awful.

Look--I don't know if this is the beginning of the end of any semblance of competitive balance. I hate the Yankees, and sadly it seems as if they're primed to win a lot of games next year too. But then again, it looked like the Phillies were primed until their stud pitcher decided he wasn't any good at pitching and their closer decided to shit himself and then not shit himself and then shit himself again. And it looked, in 2001 that the Yankees were going to keep on winning championships until the commissioner disbanded the MLB. It's easy to sit at what seems like the precipice and abandon all logic and point to one aspect of a team's success (payroll) and ignore the fact that it had only a little to do with their moderate success in the past. It's easy to do that. But it doesn't make you right.

Apologies to my fellow writers on this blog for this 5000 word essay devoid of humor burying your always-hilarious posts. But it had to be done. May the Lord forgive me!

:)