Is Derek Jeter a big fat cheater? Of course. But the next thing we have to decide is if that’s a bad thing. Athletes cheat every day … and if you’re a soccer fan accustomed to all the diving, make that every minute. With his fake-getting-hit-by-a-pitch groaning and writhing on Wednesday, Jeter did nothing more than anyone who has ever faked taking a charge in basketball has done. NFL offensive lineman: “Excuse me, ref. I clearly committed holding on that previous play, and no one called it. I’d hate to have that on my conscious.”
Of course, baseball purists would disagree. And even though Al Merrill of Clearwater, Fla., looks like he’s old enough to remember when Arnold Rothstein fixed the 1919 World Series, he’s plenty mad at Jeter for disgracing the Grand Old Game. When Merrill, 87, saw on TV what Jeter had done, the baseball card shop employee fished out the Jeter rookie card from his collection and took a pair of scissors to it.
As card collectors go, Al is a purist — he’s never cut one and never sold one, except for that Mickey Mantle rookie when he yearned for a Lincoln Town Car. But he had rarely felt this angry before. He slipped Jeter from his protective sleeve, held Jeter in his hands and, like a spurned lover, snipped Jeter into eight jagged pieces. Still seething, he walked into the bathroom, wrapped Jeter in toilet paper and flushed Jeter out of his life.
If the latest Beckett Baseball price guide is to be believed, that flush cost Al $100, maybe more. It didn’t matter, Al thought. It was finished.
Al must have looked like Edward Scissorhands when that Mitchell report came out naming all the baseball steroid users. What, he didn’t cut up his McGwire, Bonds and A-Rod cards? As cheating in baseball goes, you can’t get more overt than sticking a needle into your a**. Come on Al, be consistent.
Well, we did get one good thing out of Jeter’s little acting performance. Maybe now we’ll finally get wide-ranging instant replay in baseball.
***
Clearwater man does away with Jeter rookie card after the Yankee’s histrionics [St. Petersburg Times]
A Boy Scout pulls a fast one [The New York Times]
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- curt gober - Sep 19, 2010 at 6:43 PM
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Jeter did not cheat, he lied. Cheating is when you do something to get around a rule, law, more, or accepted moral standard.
If I achieve a lower tax bill because I inflated an expense, then I cheated.
If the IRS contacts me and inquires, “are these expenses,which we are questioning legitimate” and I say “yes” they are…then I am a liar.
The main thing for Mr. Jeter and everyone else to remember is that, he is no better nor no worse than the rest of us.
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- Will - Sep 19, 2010 at 7:11 PM
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Jeter is a great player that is on the best paid team in baseball. They all want to win badly but being who he is and the captain on the team this is not a good example for kids everywhere. This was not pretty to watch and reminds me of the acting that we all saw during the World Cup.
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- curt - Sep 19, 2010 at 7:40 PM
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Agreed. Like I said he is human. I bet that he wishes that things had turned out differently.
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- Vinny - Sep 20, 2010 at 9:00 AM
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It happens everyday in professional sports and not for nothing Jeter is not the first or last to do it in a baseball game. How many times we see a batter foul a ball off his foot and yet during replays it is clear it never touched his foot.
So when a umpire gets a call wrong should the player act safe or just say no mr. umpire I was out. Does that make him a cheater or a liar??? get over it.
Cutting up the rookie card was a stupid impulsive mistake that he’ll regret in the long run.
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- Dan - Sep 20, 2010 at 12:19 PM
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Vinny, the guy that cut up the card won’t regret it for too long – he’s 87!!
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- Big G - Sep 20, 2010 at 1:04 PM
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He didn’t cheat, the uprire blew the call. Its called taken advantage of the situation. Just like when a player traps a ball & gets away with it or when a punter or a defensive guy in the NBA do the classsic fall or flop. Cheating is when you knowingly conspire to defraud the game. Pete Rose cheated. Barry, Sammy, Big Mac & about 90 percent of that era they cheated.
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- Big G - Sep 20, 2010 at 2:32 PM
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Sorry but he did neither. The umpire blew the call. He did not ask Jeter if it him, the umpire called it. Doesn’t matter what Jeter did or didn’t say. The ump blew the call.
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- Bob - Sep 20, 2010 at 3:32 PM
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It’s really not much different than running out of the box and flipping the bat away to try to buy ball four on a close pitch. IO believe thay call that gamesmanship.
