Lately we read many things about Derek Jeter, the New York Yankees “aging” shortstop. Archived |
YES, I SAID IT FIRST.
Weekly Article and Sports Magazine
www.yesisaiditfirst.com
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Volume 10; Article Number 10
Issue #241
WHEN STUFF HAPPENS
By Patrick Morand, Senior Editor, “YES, I SAID IT FIRST”
Lately we read many things about Derek Jeter, the New York Yankees “aging” shortstop.
Some very complimentary, like the blog by a female baseball/sports fan that voted Jeter the “hottest” Yankee player, and then some not so flattering from around the country.
The most talked about this week were comments by Baltimore Orioles Manager Buck Showalter who called out Jeter’s playing style when he routinely steps back from the plate on inside pitches as if they are about to hit him to “steal” strike calls.
While I am sure it is a strategy it is definitely a new one to me and I have followed baseball for some 36 years.
You mean to tell me that a batter can contort his body language to cheat in the same way catchers always try to influence the umpire on marginal strike calls?
In case you missed it Showalter raised the ire of others in baseball by saying more things in a magazine interview before backpedalling somewhat by the weekend on all his comments.
SHOWALTER SCREAMED FROM DUGOUT
At Yankee Stadium last year Showalter screamed from the dugout at Jeter when he hopped back from an “obvious inside strike pitch” and fooled the umpire into calling a ball.
Showalter and others in baseball think that Jeter does this too much, and it actually brings back memories of the fake hit by pitch call he drew last fall.
Orioles’ players were surprised that Showalter would yell at another team’s player from the dugout – calling him out as he plays out his shenanigans.
Maybe his comments should be directed at the umpires who are always getting fooled?
Isn’t it rational to believe that Jeter gets away with this tactic because he is just better at it than other players who are as free to also try the same?
Oh yeah, and Showalter also took a dig at Boston Red Sox General Manager Theo Epstein in the same magazine spread:
I'd like to see how smart Theo Epstein is with the Tampa Bay (Rays) payroll. You got Carl Crawford 'cause you paid more than anyone else, and that's what makes you smarter? That's why I like whipping their butt. It's great, knowing those guys with the $205 million payroll are saying, 'How the hell are they beating us?' (Men’s Journal, April 2011)
Showalter called out the Red Sox and I guess really all of baseball for having a system that allows rich teams to get the best players?
Or was he calling out the rest of us for suggesting the managers on the richer teams are smarter for spending their money to get players to help them win?
For me the real question can be turned around just like the Jeter question.
If Jeter gets away with something he must be very good at it.
If the Red Sox have established themselves somehow as a rich team despite playing in the smallest ballpark in the league just maybe they did something right to get in that position.
The Yankees were run awful in the Don Mattingly playing years (1982-1995) and they never won anything, but they had the money.
I am not picking on Showalter...he was candidly saying what many in baseball think about the same things.
For the record Epstein would have a hard time as GM of the Rays or heaven forbid the Royals or Pirates.
Although it is more fair that we judge Epstein on how well he has done at building the Red Sox because there are teams that have been close to being as consistent as the Red Sox, meaning the Angels or the Cardinals and they have good players as well, but they are not always prohibitive favourites in a division that also competes with the Yankees (Yankees are now worth $1.7 billion according to Forbes).
Epstein is too smart a man to work for those other teams.
CODES OF CONDUCT IN BASEBALL
Showalter was being sarcastic but sarcasm has never gone over well in the baseball. There apparently still are codes in baseball – that shouldn’t be broken and many of them are silly.
I guess not cheating or trying to get an edge is some invisible honor thing, invisible because I never see any player avoid the opportunity to cheat but they all complain about it. Yet, people think “guilty” players like Jeter should turn to the umpire and admit the pitch was over the plate.
I guess then the catcher who sets his glove inside making it look like the pitch is a strike should also come clean.
Never mind that baseball is partly all about tricking the other guys anyway. Tricking them into swinging at their pitch when it is not really “their pitch”, and keeping them guessing.
The pitcher tricks the runner to hold him close to first by faking that he may throw there.
The outfielder may just pretend to be catching a fly ball over his head to make sure the runner on second hesitates so that he may not score on a single.
It happens in baseball, and I for one like it when stuff happens in baseball because baseball is more than just throwing, hitting, and homeruns.
I think baseball needs personality to be better. Baseball needs the tricky players especially when they are smart like Jeter.
It also needs Showalter to make a stink about it.
Showalter’s Orioles are rivals with the Red Sox and the Yankees and their whole success will be measured by two barely relevant things this year because winning the division will not be one of them:
1) The O’s must win half their games even though 36 of them are against the two powerhouse Yankees and Red Sox;
2) The O’s must catch one of those teams or at least be the reason one misses the postseason.
Showalter did not mean to raise the ire of all baseball in the magazine interview, but that he is creating some animosity with a manager and players on the other teams is probably a good thing for his team to see.
Showalter did already change the culture in Baltimore when he arrived last summer, and one can conclude with all his new players that they will carry a chip on their shoulders in support of their manager this year.
WHY NOT IN BASEBALL?
This sort of thing works in football so why not in baseball?
While Epstein and Jeter chose to not rebut anything that Showalter said, the Sox manager Terry Francona did speak up. Again one of the best things about the Red Sox is their manager because like Showalter he is engaging and can add colour to a game that too often is just black and white.
Francona told the Boston Globe:
I got asked that the other day (about the Men’s Journal issue) and I hadn’t seen it. I got it third-hand and I kind of joked about it a little bit. Then I read it and actually I was kind of aggravated a little bit. I don’t think that’s anybody’s place. That’s my boss (Epstein). I was actually kind of aggravated a little bit. It’s not the end of the world, but I thought he shouldn’t have done it...I just thought that was a little bit out of line. I don’t think he’d be appreciating if I said something about Andy (MacPhail, Baltimore's president of baseball operations), which I wouldn’t. It’s none of my business. And for the record, I think Andy’s really good...
In baseball teams and managers are not to stick their noses into things that are not their own business – and Francona is saying that because it’s a tradition or a rule. However, some of my most favorite moments writing this column have been discussing quirks in the baseball rules and how players and teams sometimes disregard and take advantage of them.
Breaking the code and the rules are the things that make me the most happy. Most of those unwritten rules about gamesmanship things are silly anyway.
One manager that I really respect in the same division, Joe Maddon of the Tampa Bay Rays is one who will tread outside the “rules” and that is probably what transformed the Rays from a cellar dweller to division champions in two of the last three years.
Maybe Showalter sees that his Orioles team can now also face the dragon directly in the eye in the same way and use it to motivate his players, as the aggressor like Maddon did taking advantage of what the opponents gave him.
In March 2008 the Tampa Bay Rays started the season with their normal alotment of promising young talent with usual prospects of finishing last in the American League East in the opinion of every baseball journalist.
As they met the heavily favored Yankees in a Florida exhibition game that spring the Yankees were a group just going through the stretches of spring while the young Rays competed with a level of aggressiveness akin to any team full of players hopeful of making an impression on their manager.
Some incidents in the game outraged Yankees manager Joe Girardi who thought the hard base running barrelling over and injuring the Yankees catcher at home plate was out of place in the spring games.
The Rays were accused of trying too hard.
So of course in a game where nothing like that is supposed to happen the Yankees wanted to get even.