Friday, September 18, 2009

Random Sports Note - Derek Jeter

Derek Jeter. Yep, I hate the Yankees. Hate them. Jeter's a fine player, but I've never liked him, mostly because he’s smug, spoiled, and overrated.

(An aside—I swear I’ll lose my mind if I ever again hear how amazing his play was against Oakland in the playoffs several years ago. You know the one: he runs over to redirect the lousy off-line throw from the outfield, tossing the ball to Jorge Posada who tags an inexplicably non-sliding Jeremy Giambi. People talk as if it was the smartest, most magnificent play in history. Whatever. I did the EXACT SAME THING playing kickball in 3rd grade. Laugh if you want, but at 8 years old in the Hazel Grove gym during PE class, I ran over and deflected a poorly-thrown ball right into Randy Kussatz’ legs as he tried to score, thus retiring the side. I’m not saying this to toot my own horn, or pretend I was some wunderkind athlete. What I’m saying is that while Yankee fans want to anoint Derek Jeter the messiah of baseball for his incredible smarts and instincts, a chubby 8-year-old in KCK had those same smarts and instincts.)

Anyway, did you see how much coverage they devoted to him breaking the Yankees’ career hits record? There’s a one-minute sports update on the radio, and 10 seconds of it is being used to let me know Jeter’s 6 hits away from tying the record? It’s the lead story on SportsCenter? There are people actually suggesting this makes him an MVP candidate?

It’s a franchise record. Not a major-league record. Not even an American League record.

He’s now got the 52nd most hits in major league history. BFD.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

them. But, I absolutely love Jeter. He may be overrated and overhyped but I hardly blame him. He's fun to watch, keeps his nose clean, bags super hot chicks without being tabloidy (I'll make up words if I want to) and is courteous to fans.

I can understand hating the Yankees and all that, but I just can't understand hating Jeter.

The DLC said...

I can't hate Jeter because he grew up in Kalamazoo, which is like my homeland. There is a park there named after my great grandfather.

But I can easily hate pretty much every other Yankee, especially Jorge Posada for some reason.

Unknown said...

Whatever dude, Jeter is cool.

JJSKCK said...

I can't say I hate Jeter. I definitely respect him. But it's been called to my attention that I'm not the only one who thought surpassing Lou Gehrig was WAY overblown:

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/derek_jeter_honored_for_having

JJSKCK said...

The Onion on Jeter