Dear SI: Are you friggin' kidding me?

[Guest Edgy DC]

And what could be more unwholesome than bringing your wife and children to ride with you in a parade?[/quote:ck7u0n1u]
Exactly. It's absolutely a question of spin. If Jeter had the profile of Alex Rodriguez, a good writer like Verducci could easily paint as pathetic being 35 and having no wife and kids to share your moment with, but rather your 15th Hollywood starlet, so you have to bring in your ever-reliable parents to round out your coach and make you look human.

It's no more true or less true. It's just the damn angle Verducci uses to get to the predestined conclusion.

[G-Fafif]

The first time Jeter found himself one win away from his fifth world championship was on Nov. 3, 2001, in Game 6 of the World Series against the Arizona Diamondbacks. The night went horribly wrong for the Yankees, to the point that manager Joe Torre, with his team losing 15-0, pulled Jeter, catcher Jorge Posada and first baseman Tino Martinez from the game in the fifth inning as an act of surrender. Jeter walked into the clubhouse to change out of his spikes and into a pair of more comfortable turf shoes. In the training room he saw Jay Witasick, a journeyman reliever for the Yankees who in 1 1/3 innings had given up nine runs, eight of them earned, a Series record for a reliever. As Jeter walked by, he heard Witasick say, "Well, at least I had fun." "Derek just jumped all over him," Posada says. "Derek couldn't believe what he was saying. He was really, really hot. That was the angriest I've ever seen him." Last week, sitting in an airport hangar in Long Beach, Calif., surrounded by a small army of people to shoot a commercial for Gillette, Jeter nodded when he was asked about the episode with Witasick. "I remember," Jeter said. Slowly, he began to get agitated again. "Fun? I can't relate to it. I really can't relate to it. I'll never forget that. At least you had fun? I'll never understand it. I don't want to understand it."

Whether Witasick said it in wry "what're ya gonna do?" fashion (we're always being told how important is for ballplayers to turn the page) or in some oblivious to consequences of his actions way is unclear, but Verducci relishes Jeter's reaction of ripping Witasick a new one over being such a loser, thus the implication Jeter's a winner and a leader. It could just as easily be interpreted as Jeter being an a-hole to a guy who just had the worst night of his professional life and therefore not being any kind of leader at all.

[metirish]

What utter bollox that is......Veducci should just write Jeter's HOF speech , he can include the Witasick story to help validate the great mans career

[G-Fafif]

Every alltime great ballplayer establishes a brand, a shorthand identifier that captures what makes him iconic. For Ruth, for instance, it was the home run. Mays was a thrilling body in motion, Aaron represented strength of character, Mantle a comic-book heroism, Koufax the curveball, Ryan the fastball, Rose all-out hustle and Reggie the month of October. Jeter is unique this way. He has forged an identity as the ultimate team player in a team sport.

If "every alltime great ballplayer establishes a brand," how is Jeter unique? Aren't those other players unique? And how is he the ultimate team player exactly? Because he wants to win? Rose didn't want to win? Jackson, Koufax, Aaron? Just a bunch of statmongers?

[Guest Edgy DC]

And it somehow validates the moment that Jeter (a) still remembers it and ( still feels it.

Check out once more, if you will, that: "Fun? I can't relate to it. I really can't relate to it. I'll never forget that. At least you had fun? I'll never understand it. I don't want to understand it."

Again, if pre-magic-vagina A-Rod comes out eight years after the incident with that shit, he would be painted as a heartless automaton. Dude is so busy feeding his own myth that it doesn't even occur to him that the writer won't spin his b.s. exactly the way he needs it spun. Why should it?

If he was such a relentless winner, he should have ripped Torre for pulling him while there were still outs to work with. He should still be angry about that.

Oh, and those "brands" are bullshit. I'm sure Henry Aaron is and was a fine man, but "strength of character" was not his fucking brand. Is Verducci confusing him with Jackie Robinson as he retroactively makes this stuff up?

[batmagadanleadoff]

Every alltime great ballplayer establishes a brand, a shorthand identifier that captures what makes him iconic. For Ruth, for instance, it was the home run. Mays was a thrilling body in motion, Aaron represented strength of character, Mantle a comic-book heroism, Koufax the curveball, Ryan the fastball, Rose all-out hustle and Reggie the month of October. Jeter is unique this way. He has forged an identity as the ultimate team player in a team sport.

If "every alltime great ballplayer establishes a brand," how is Jeter unique? Aren't those other players unique? And how is he the ultimate team player exactly? Because he wants to win? Rose didn't want to win? Jackson, Koufax, Aaron? Just a bunch of statmongers?

Edited December 3, 2009 by Guest

[MFS62]

Every alltime great ballplayer establishes a brand, a shorthand identifier that captures what makes him iconic. For Ruth, for instance, it was the home run. Mays was a thrilling body in motion, Aaron represented strength of character, Mantle a comic-book heroism, Koufax the curveball, Ryan the fastball, Rose all-out hustle and Reggie the month of October. Jeter is unique this way. He has forged an identity as the ultimate team player in a team sport.

If "every alltime great ballplayer establishes a brand," how is Jeter unique? Aren't those other players unique? And how is he the ultimate team player exactly? Because he wants to win? Rose didn't want to win? Jackson, Koufax, Aaron? Just a bunch of statmongers?

[G-Fafif]

Kalamazoo has given the world Shakespeare fishing rods, Gibson guitars, Checker cabs, and Jeter's will to win, in that order of rigidity.

Something else must have gotten pretty rigid while Verducci typed that sentence.

If you were to draw up a list of Jeter's dislikes, most all of them would be what he regards as obstacles to winning:

Long walks on the beach with Jay Witasick not included.

1. Individuals who don't care about winning. 2. Self-promoters. "I never liked people who talked about themselves all the time, gloat," he says. "If you're accomplished and have done things, people will talk about it for you. I don't think you have to point it out. I'm not judging anybody. That's just the way I am."

Jeter's no individual or self-promoter. He's a team player all the way. That's why he insisted on having so many of his teammates pose with him for the cover of his magazine and why he told SI "make it about my team, not just me."

3. Measuring success by individual statistics. "In this day and age, not just in baseball but in sports in general, all people care about is stats, stats, stats," he says. "You've got fantasy this, fantasy that, where you pay attention to stats. But there are ways to win games that you don't get a stat for." 4. Injury talk. "You either play or you don't play. If you're playing, nobody wants to know what's bothering you. Sometimes it's a built-in excuse for failing."

Sounds like the ultimate team man is taking backhanded swipes at other players, possibly teammeates.

5. Negativity. Jeter wants nothing to do with negative questions from reporters or negative talk from teammates. He once went 0 for 32 and refused to admit he was in a slump. "We weren't allowed to use the word can't�'I can't do this, can't do that,'" Jeter says of his childhood. "My mom would say, 'What? No.' She's always positive. I don't like people always talking about the negative, negative, negative, because once you get caught in that mind-set, it's hard to get out of it."

Didn't mind being negative about Jay Witasick, did he?

[metirish]

I can't take this anymore.....Mr. Verducci you should be ashamed.


Actually I find it quite funny reading the excerpts and responses.

[Guest Edgy DC]

2. Self-promoters. "I never liked people who talked about themselves all the time, gloat," he says. "If you're accomplished and have done things, people will talk about it for you. I don't think you have to point it out. I'm not judging anybody. That's just the way I am."

Are they immune to irony over there? The man takes four sentences to describe himself as a guy who doesn't like to describe himself, not like those other self-describing people --- who he dislikes but doesn't judge. Faaaahk you.

[metirish]

2. Self-promoters. "I never liked people who talked about themselves all the time, gloat," he says. "If you're accomplished and have done things, people will talk about it for you. I don't think you have to point it out. I'm not judging anybody. That's just the way I am."

Are they immune to irony over there? The man takes four sentences to describe himself as a guy who doesn't like to describe himself, not like those other self-describing people --- who he dislikes but doesn't judge. Faaaahk you.

[G-Fafif]

After Verducci rigidly tells some story about Jeter wins a childish bet with the director of his next commercial, making the director gag on a spoonful of cinnamon (what a fun lover!), we get, as the conclusion, his true "essence"...which is the reading equivalent of gagging on a spoonful of cinnamon.

Another victory, however small, for Derek Jeter, today's superstar most synonymous with winning. But none of the accoutrements of his success�the five rings, the $189 million contract, the national endorsements and the starlet on his arm�capture the essence of his success. In the difficult days of the Philippines campaign during World War II, General Douglas MacArthur wrote A Father's Prayer, which begins, "Build me a son, O Lord." MacArthur prayed for a son with, among other traits, "humility, so that he may always remember the simplicity of true greatness." Therein lies true victory. The great wonder is not that Jeter has won so much but that he has won so well. He is the good son, the good winner.

Verducci will take a spoonful of Jeter's essence...to go.

[Guest Edgy DC]

This.....this nails it on the head for me regarding Jeter.....I have always felt this was him.

Thanks. I never liked people who talked about themselves nailing it on the head all the time, gloat. If you're accomplished and have nailed it on the head and have done things, people will talk about it for you. I don't think you have to point the nailing out. I'm not judging anybody. That's just the way I nail.

[metirish]

OMFeckingG

Jeter is the son of General Douglas MacArthur? ,

Seriously , how could a journalist even manage to bring those two together in an article , the Philippines campaign?...WTF?

[G-Fafif]

OMFeckingG

Jeter is the son of General Douglas MacArthur? ,

Seriously , how could a journalist even manage to bring those two together in an article , the Philippines campaign?...WTF?[/quote:td33btrt]

Roger Kahn has written about the early days of SI and the kind of crap the Time-Life editors, desperately shy of sports savvy, would come up with to ruin his copy. This is worse than that.

[Guest Edgy DC]

And the neighbors are reporting that construction on Humility House is moving right along.



They were a little peeved about the nine-foot perimeter walls until they learned they were walls of grace.

[G-Fafif]

Irony also lost on Verducci that MacArthur wasn't exactly a graduate of the Humility Academy.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Good point, I guess (though two of the "Athletes Who Care" winners in 1987 were trackletes), but do you really think the profile of track and field has changed so much in the interim or that Sports Illustrated has changed?

And were they a better institution then or now?

And isn't a nod to Derek Jeter some sort of nod to some sort of ideal gentlemanly sporting values?

[G-Fafif]

There are three "congratulations" ads in the print edition specific to Jeter's winning the award. Probably three more than they could sell for Bolt.

[Centerfield]

2. Self-promoters. "I never liked people who talked about themselves all the time, gloat," he says. "If you're accomplished and have done things, people will talk about it for you. I don't think you have to point it out. I'm not judging anybody. That's just the way I am."

Jeter went on to cite to how certain athletes go as far as to launch their own cologne, their own sneaker, their own fitness centers. "That's not me. I will do anything to win. Regardless of the game. I once sold a testicle to beat the Royals in May."

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

There are three "congratulations" ads in the print edition specific to Jeter's winning the award. Probably three more than they could sell for Bolt.[/quote:1y42jrnz]

That is exactly the reason they did it.

[metirish]

Best thread ever........

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

There are three "congratulations" ads in the print edition specific to Jeter's winning the award. Probably three more than they could sell for Bolt.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Best thread ever........[/quote:37byqce5]
MacArthur prayed for a thread like this.

[metirish]

Certainly the best thread since that nasty business in the south pacific during WWII

[Guest Edgy DC]

If you told me that something or somebody could turn me into a Jay Witasick fan, I'd not have believed you, but here I am.

[batmagadanleadoff]

If Derek Jeter was so much as half the Sportsman of the Year that SI wants us to believe he is, he'd admit that Usain Bolt should've won the award.

[G-Fafif]

2. Self-promoters. "I never liked people who talked about themselves all the time, gloat," he says. "If you're accomplished and have done things, people will talk about it for you. I don't think you have to point it out. I'm not judging anybody. That's just the way I am."

Jeter went on to cite to how certain athletes go as far as to launch their own cologne, their own sneaker, their own fitness centers. "That's not me. I will do anything to win. Regardless of the game. I once sold a testicle to beat the Royals in May."

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

Quote:
Kalamazoo has given the world Shakespeare fishing rods, Gibson guitars, Checker cabs, and Jeter's will to win, in that order of rigidity.


Kalamazoo is less than an hour from here. In the 10 years I've lived in Grand Rapids, I've been there maybe three times, and two of those times were for concerts. There's even an independent minor league team there, and I'll go anywhere to see a baseball game. Yet, I've never been to one of those games. That tells you pretty much all you need to know about Kalamazoo.

Edited December 3, 2009 by Guest

[G-Fafif]

Kalamazoo has given the world Shakespeare fishing rods, Gibson guitars, Checker cabs, no good reason for Mets Guy In Michigan to consistently visit and Jeter's will to win, in that order of rigidity.