My thoughts on the never-ending Derek Jeter farewell tour

Courtesy of DrewLitton.com

I have been griping about the monstrosity of this eternal Derek Jeter farewell tour for months. I lost patience with it at the All-Star Game, with Adam Wainwright's "pipe shot" to Jeter, the obsequious Nike commercial, and the incessant talk about the Yankee captain keeping the broadcasters from discussing anybody or anything else. But this tour has only become even more obnoxious and self-serving and crass since.

For somebody who is beloved in no small part precisely because he was supposed to be about team, and not himself, this whole spectacle has been a massive, and yes, hypocritical ego trip on an unprecedented level. From the patch honoring himself on all of the Yankees' hats and jerseys for the past three weeks, to the Jeter flags circling Yankee Stadium, to the special Jeter bases, to the self-aggrandizing and obnoxious King of NY cleats, to the shameless Steiner Sports event where fans paid three and four figures to watch Jeter answer fawning "interview" questions from Brandon Steiner, to the tribute commercials, to the "My Way" theme song, to the incessant media coverage, it is all too much. 

At the same time, almost nobody in the media -- with the noted exceptions of Ken Davidoff, Chris Carlin, and Keith Olbermann -- has had anything critical to say about how this tour is the exact opposite of what Jeter is supposed to be about. I don't agree with all of their arguments -- Carlin shouldn't have used the word "fraud" and some of Olbermann's arguments, like the idea Jeter must miss the Boston series to be a real Yankee, were weak. But I think we need to have dissenting views from the herd, and talk about them, without others complaining about them being "haters" -- the most overused and misused term out there these days. Literally 99.9% of the articles out there this year on Jeter are positive, despite the crassness of this tour. And yet some Jeter fans lose their minds over any opinion that does not conform to their ideal, wanting to silence those opinions. Sheesh.

The Yankees were eliminated from the postseason yesterday, which should be a much bigger deal than it is. After all, this is the second year in a row the Bombers didn't make the postseason, despite the biggest payroll in the league. The Yankees have become the new Atlanta Braves, with one title in 14 seasons, except the Braves actually won their division each year (and did it in a third of the payroll of these Yankees.) Oh, and Atlanta actually fired their GM when they didn't make the playoffs this year. Meanwhile, in Yankeeland, the incompetent Brian Cashman may get yet another contract. Whatever happened to good old-fashioned accountability in the Bronx? 

I think it is clear that the Steinbrenners are more interested in this shameless money grab that the "season2watch" has become than in winning. After all, this tour has been putting fannies in the seats, and cash in the coffers. Who cares about the games when you can buy a Derek Jeter sock for the low, low price of $409.99? And that is one sock -- not a pair! Or you can buy the dirt Jeter walked on, or the rake that touched the dirt that Jeter walked on, as if these items are religious relics from a saint. I imagine Brandon Steiner -- who was celebrating in Jeter's private suite at Yankee Stadium with Derek's dad -- will try to sell the air from over today's game, or the rain. And fans will be all too happy to open their wallets.

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The biggest irony to me is that Jeter's actual tangibles -- Jayson Stark highlighted some of the eyepopping numbers in Derek's career -- get lost in all this blather and hype over the intangibles. Sorry, folks, but Jeter isn't the best person to ever play the game, But he was a very good player who was consistently very good for a very long time. He never had an MVP season, but he had a consistent level of success which is reflected in the 3400+ hits and 200 postseason hits and over 1000 multi-hit games and 2743 games played,  He is a first-ballot HOFer and a top five Yankee. If you want to talk off-the-field stuff, his Turn 2 Foundation has given $19 million in grants to help young people. Isn't that enough? Why do we have to have all the rest of this nonsense?

Did Mariano Rivera really call the old Yankee Stadium 'a loud and frenzied cauldron of pinstriped passion'?

There was a rather spirited discussion on my Facebook page yesterday regarding my Squawk about Mariano Rivera's new book, and about the great Robinson Cano/Dustin Pedroia debate. I also noticed something my friend, popular author Jerome Preisler (see his Amazon page), said on his own Facebook page. He had gotten to read an e-sampler of "The Closer," and didn't think that Wayne Coffey had captured Rivera's voice. And after reading some of the quotes and an excerpt from the book, I completely agree. Coffey did a great job with R.A. Dickey's book, which is one of the best baseball books I have ever read. This one, not so much, if the quotes show what  Mo's book is about. Very disappointing.

Here is the most cringeworthy passage that I have seen so far, of Rivera talking about the new Yankee Stadium vs. the old one:

"It doesn't hold noise, or home-team fervor, anywhere near the way the old place did," he said. "The old Stadium was our 10th man -- a loud and frenzied cauldron of pinstriped passion, with a lot of lifers in the stands. Maybe I'm wrong, but it's hard to see that the new place can ever quite duplicate that."

While I mostly agree with the sentiment (but also think that some of the lack of noise is due to the changing fanbase, not just the stadium itself) I don't think for a minute that Rivera said that exact quote. That is sportswriter speak, not real-life speak. Not only does Mo not talk like that, but most people don't. Except for florid sportswriters like Coffey.

Not to mention the bizarre digression in the book discussing the greatest second baseman ever. According to the ESPN article about the tome, "Rivera cites Roberto Alomar and former teammate Chuck Knoblauch as second basemen he'd consider alongside Cano in the debate over the best at the position." Knoblauch? Really? Not only was he in the Mitchell Report, but he had to stop being a second basemen in what should have been the prime of his career because he couldn't make the throw to first anymore (Remember when he accidentally hit Keith Olbermann's mother in the stands?) Knoblauch is a sad story, but he doesn't even belong in any part of the discussion of the best second basemen ever. And the fact that Rivera included him makes me question Mo's judgment a little.

Anyhow, when a publisher releases information about a book's contents, they should leave you wanting to purchase the book, not leaving you scratching your head why nobody seemed to realize that Mo's "voice" in the book sounds nothing like him. What should be a poignant excerpt -- Rivera talking about his difficult childhood -- is flawed because it just doesn't sound like the way Mo talks.

In retrospect, as Jerome and I discussed on Facebook. Rivera and Coffey would have been better taking their time with this book, instead of doing such a rush job. Did they think people would so quickly forget the greatest closer of all time? If they had spent, say, six months to a year more on this, or even just waited for time and perspective before putting pen to paper, they had the material with Rivera's life to make what could have been a great book. Instead, they pushed out a book with groaners like "a loud and frenzied cauldron of pinstriped passion" and fomented controversy for no reason with the stuff on Cano. They should have had more confidence in Rivera's story and given him the type of great book that his career warranted. A dignified one.

More on Brian Cashman, Keith Olbermann, and the Slap Chop Guy Lookalike

I have written more than once that I thought Brian Cashman was pulling a George Costanza as of late. Now I'm starting to think he's pulling a "Bulworth." Maybe he'll start rapping next!

Anyhow, Keith Olbermann wrote a followup to his discovery of a Yankee staffer who looks like the Slap Chop Guy signaling to Yankee players. He said the staffer was back in his usual home plate on Sunday, after not being there Saturday, but that there was no signaling going on this time.

Oh, and Olbermann said, "Barring more developments, I promise to leave this trivial incident alone, but if you’d like to read a reasoned, calm blog about the response to it, here you go," and he linked to my article on the kerfuffle! Very cool!

Anyhow, when I wrote about Brian Cashman calling bloggers "psychotics," I missed a great joke opportunity to compare Cash's gripes about bloggers to a Scooby-Doo villain complaining about those meddling kids! I hate it when I miss an easy joke like that.

And I wish I had written this line about Cashman being shocked to find out Pedro Feliciano was overworked with the Mets. DaveNJ, a commenter at Amazin' Avenue, writes, "If Cashman is this upset about Feliciano, just wait until someone tells him about Mark Prior." Good one!

I myself am waiting to see if Cash blames the Tampa contingent for the Feliciano thing. Or maybe it's the Steinbrenner brothers. Or us meddling bloggers!

What do you think? Tell us about it!

And We Thought Murray Chass Was Bad: Brian Cashman Calls Bloggers "Psychotics"

Last month, Brian Cashman explained to the Wall Street Journal why the Yankees have such an extensive media training program for their players. "We are the largest media market in the world. We will control the back pages on a yearly basis, without a doubt, whether we want to or not, and we'd rather limit the damage and get ourselves on the back pages for the right reasons, not the wrong reasons," he said.

Hmmmmm. Maybe Cash ought to sign up for a refresher course for himself. Because he managed to stir up not one but two controversies this weekend. It wasn't just him complaining and whining about Pedro Feliciano being abused as a Met. It was him calling bloggers "psychotics" and comparing them to dangerous criminals. Makes that whole Murray Chass-esque "bloggers live in their mother's basement" cliche look downright tame, don't you think?

The thing is, I can't figure out who, specifically, Cashman is calling psychotic, unless he means TV personality/diehard baseball fan Keith Olbermann. It was Olbermann who posted photos  -- first on Twitter during Opening Day, and then on his blog -- of a man in the stands who looks like Vince the Slap Chop Guy making hand signals to the players.

Turns out the Slap Chop Guy lookalike wasn't making references to fettucine, martini, linguini, or bikini -- he was Brett Weber, a Yankee coaching assistant who appeared to be letting the team's hitters know the type and location of the previous pitches thrown. Yankee season ticket holder Olbermann, who wrote he had seen this happen a number of times over the last year, wrote he thought it was "something less than cheating and I wasn’t looking to portray it as such."  It's not like Keith picked the coaching assistant as one of his Worst Person of the World candidates. In fact, he seemed more bemused than anything, writing that:

..."two other things surprise me more than anything else about this tempest-in-a-teapot. First, it went on all last year and nobody noticed? Based on relative seat location, the signals should be visible on television, although the players looking into the crowd would not necessarily have attracted any attention.

More importantly: At Yankee Stadium, it’s a shock to consider that the club surrendered the income from the seat. That, friends, costs at least $500 a game."

Anyhow, after Olbermann posted the pix, MLB investigated and contacted the Yankees front office to find out what was happening Turns out that the Yanks apparently violated Rule C-4, where staff are prohibited from using hand signals to communicate pitch information to players. Given that the very same information is supposed to be shown on the scoreboard, it doesn't exactly seem like the crime of the century to me.

But Cashman acted very strangely when asked about the issue Saturday. He said that:

"Anybody who obsessed about it yesterday, I kind of feel the psychotics who obsessed about it yesterday, I think we all did them a favor by keeping them off the street and preventing them from hurting others,” Cashman said.

Cashman then clarified that the “psychotics” were members of the blogosphere — not members of the media or members of Major League Baseball.

While Olbermann was speaking with reporters this afternoon, Cashman walked over and joked that Weber was merely ordering “four beers” and not signaling anything illegal.

Update: In response to a question I received about what Cashman said about bloggers, I found an even more direct quote on NorthJersey.com: "I was calling the blogosphere psychotics that really focused on it because it’s silly."

You know, the Mets front office invites baseball bloggers to conference calls and press conferences, gives them tours of Citi Field, and treats them like people worthy of respect. The Yankee GM calls baseball bloggers "psychotics" who need to be kept off the street.

And how about Cashman making jokes with the person who inadvertently started the whole story in the first place?

The funny thing is that I still can't figure out who in the heck Cashman is referring to here regarding his cheap shots at bloggers. On Friday, I saw some silly April Fool's Day Yankee articles around the baseball blogosphere, but I don't remember seeing anybody discuss this story. Nor did I get any grief on the issue from Yankee-hating friends, the way I usually do whenever the team gets in the news for something controversial.

In fact, the first time I heard about the story was when I read Anthony McCarron's article on it in Saturday's Daily News. I even went back to review the Yankee-related articles in Google and on SportsSpyder, and the first references I could find were on Saturday morning in the mainstream media, not the hated blogosphere. If there is some secret blog that was pushing this, please let me know, because I sure didn't see it!

What do you think? Tell us about it!